Under the Moonlight
by miyukichan
Summary: I based this fic on the music video 'Zetsuai 20XX' though the inspiration isn't obvious. It's what you'd get if you set Bronze in the middle of a war zone and assigned the charas sides at random. Warning: it isn't graphic, but this fic has violence, NCS,
1. Part 1

Miyuki's Zetsuai Page Zetsuai 1989/Bronze   
Under The Moonlight, part 1 By miyukichan 

_Author's notes: this fanfic came about through my desire to write a total A/U (and one with no historical basis, no less… guess who can't be bothered to research? And unlike Ozaki I have no desire to go on about Nazi Germany, the only historical period I could set this in.). The fic is set in the sort of landscape portrayed in the Cathexis video "Zetsuai 20xx"-the buildings less ruinous but the same sort of effect. The kind of technology is contemporary (so no killer robots or cybernetically enhanced crazed nazi vampire lords here) but like the landscape that's slowly falling to bits as well. I'm trying to get a whole kind of "last days of the Third Reich" thing going on with Hirose and Akihito-only time will tell how successful that aim was. I am NOT going to be following the canon with the characters-most of the relationships will have been altered along with some of the characters' pasts. Please bear with me-it gets better later. The title is taken from the first line of the song "Zetsuai 20xx"-my inspiration, however indirectly, for this fanfic._

The view from Koji Nanjo's window was desolate, but it had been for as long as he could remember. His days had always been grey and cheerless, the sun watery in a featureless sky. The nights, by contrast, were brighter than the morning, the scarred landscape thrown into bizarre relief by the moon, which was far more brilliant than the sun could ever hope to be, the snow which usually blanketed the land transformed. It was on nights like those that he longed to leave his insulated world far behind, but the beauty of the night was illusory. That was something that had been reinforced for him since childhood. The beauty of the night was illusory and hid the very real dangers of the world beyond his window. 

The war had been going on for at least ninety years. Very few people could remember what it was for anymore, but it seemed that it was being fought more for tradition's sake than anything. The two sides had been in a deadlock for at longer than Koji had been alive, although all attempts at a negotiated peace had fallen through. People seemed to like being at war, and here in the city, despite the rubble in the streets and the burnt-out shells of buildings that could be seen wherever one walked, there had been no real danger for over twenty years. The actual fighting went on elsewhere-here in the capital it was safe, at least while the deadlock continued. He was even safer than most in the city. His family ruled this country-they made the orders and their safety was a matter of national urgency. If the war had through some fluke come anywhere near this city, then he, his immediate family and all the staff and retainers which seemed to be necessary for the family to survive from day to day would have been evacuated to safety. 

The youngest of three brothers, Koji had been his father's favourite from an early age, partly through his looks, partly his ability to excel in most things he could be bothered to put his mind to. He had always been a beautiful child, but there was nothing even remotely feminine about him despite the fact that he had pale skin and long, practically white hair. He was tall, attractive and an incurable womaniser, though he did not care for his current so-called girlfriend-a woman in her twenties named Mieko. Besides, Koji was an insatiable womaniser and the sheer number of his casual conquests was frightening. He was by nature wilful and wayward, which should not be accounted too surprising in a young man who had not yet reached his eighteenth birthday-but in Koji these traits seemed not just to be a preserve of his youth, but a deep-seated facet of his character which could only worsen with time. 

But status and security are not enough to keep a seventeen-year-old mind satisfied and despite all his advantages Koji felt his life was empty. He felt imprisoned in his family's home, partly due to its tight security, partly due to his being unable to go out alone. Underneath the cold and cynical demeanour he presented to his family, he had a romantic temperament and saw himself as a bird in a gilded cage who longed to fly away and be free. 

*** 

Another cage, but far less ornate and a prison in both the literal and psychological sense of the word. The cell was small, dingy, cramped and uncomfortably cold, most of the space being taken up with a bunk bed on which two young men, or rather a young man and a teenage boy, were sitting. Both wore similar clothing-a light grey uniform of some kind which on closer inspection turned out to be military. Neither looked like soldiers-both were slightly built, could not have been accounted handsome as they were too close to pretty than was good for young men, both were about the same height and had short blonde hair of practically identical shades. The older wore narrow glasses which suited him, although if his companion had tried them on he would have looked very strange indeed. At a casual glance you could have taken them for brothers or even for non-identical twins, but this was a deceit. The pair had no relation to each other save for three months' friendship. 

"Yoshiya?" The younger of the pair, perched precariously on the upper of the two bunks, leant over the edge to look at his companion, who had to fight back a giggle despite his irritation at being interrupted. "No, Katsumi. I am not going to play that boring shopping game again." Yoshiya, who had been writing something in a small book, gave Katsumi a dirty look then looked down again to hide the fact that he was going to laugh again. Katsumi looked utterly stupid hanging off the edge of the bunk and he probably knew it. "That wasn't what I was going to ask," the boy replied, returning to an upright position and crossing his legs beneath him. "I was going to ask you how long we'd been here. What day is it?" He'd lost all track of time. "It's Thursday." Yoshiya replied. "We've been here three weeks." He was by nature fairly conscientious and had continued keeping his diary all the time they were there despite the fact that it made for pretty dull reading. Katsumi knew that for a fact-he'd read it when the older man wasn't looking which took some doing when they were stuck in each other's company most of the time-he'd had to wait for Yoshiya to fall asleep. It was the bits prior to their arrest that he'd been interested in and had been relieved to discover that his friend's life was just as dull as his own. 

Yoshiya and Katsumi shouldn't have been there at all. As non-combatants, they should never have been in a situation which would have allowed them to be arrested by the opposite side, but fate had dealt them a bad hand. The pair had been amongst those travelling to a posting on a train which had been forced to travel through enemy-occupied territory (it shouldn't have happened but it had-in the words of the poet, "someone had blundered"), and it was whist there the train had been bombed. A lot of the others had been killed-those who had survived had been taken prisoner. Ironic, as neither really wanted to be fighting at all but had been conscripted into the army. 

"Three weeks? That long?" Katsumi asked, a look of bewilderment on his face. "Serious?" "Yes. Three weeks, two days to be more exact." Yoshiya replied. "How long are we going to be here for?" The question was posed levelly but Yoshiya knew he was anxious. Katsumi didn't like the prison at all. He wasn't the kind of person who coped with being locked up easily. The strain showed in discreet ways-for example, Katsumi wasn't sleeping very well and had begun to bite his fingernails. Outwardly he took care to appear unchanged, but Yoshiya was a good enough judge of character to work out that practically everything Katsumi said and did was the result of a particularly elaborate deception. Working out just what it was the boy was hiding was still a mystery. "I have no idea," he replied. "Until our side captures this bit of land, I suppose, although if that does happen we'd be unlikely to still be here. Or until they move us." "Or until they shoot us." "Or until they shoot us, yes Katsumi. But it's more likely that this bit of land will get captured. The front's pretty close." Katsumi sighed. "By that point we'd be dead. Either that lot"-here he gestured toward the door-"would shoot us first or the building would get bombed to bits. Either way we'd be dead so does it matter who kills us?" Yoshiya put the small book down and glared at his companion. "Katsumi! That wasn't funny!" Katsumi leant against the wall and sighed, placing his hands behind his head. "That's good," he replied. "Why?" "Because I wasn't joking." 

*** 

In a third location, over four hundred miles away from the ruinous city that Koji Nanjo and his brothers inhabited and ironically enough the place which Yoshiya and Katsumi had been attempting to reach when they were taken prisoner, Takuto Izumi was irritated. Izumi was normally irritated so this was not nearly as big a deal as it at first seemed to be. 

He, like Koji, was gazing moodily out of a window, but he had no romantic ideals about the blighted landscape he was surveying. He, like Koji, was just seventeen, tall, dark-haired and unconventionally attractive, but if he had ever had romantic notions about the world they had been killed stone dead shortly after his fifth birthday and the death of the father to whom he had been devoted. Following the traumatic events of his childhood, he had grown into a distant, hostile young man, mistrustful of the world and its inhabitants. He had very little time for other people, refusing to trust anybody. 

Izumi was a soldier, a Captain. He had joined the army at fifteen of his own free will and had proved to be very good at it, largely because he didn't care if he lived or died. He had therefore been prepared to undertake dangerous missions that those who had slightly more regard for their own safety would have considered suicidal. People respected him for what he was prepared to do, but very few actually liked him, instead finding him interesting in the same way that a forest fire is interesting-something to watch from a distance, not to get close to. 

He had been given a mission only that morning. One of the government officials, Shibuya, had a nephew who had been conscripted and posted to the base he was currently in but had somehow managed to go missing. Izumi had been told to try and find out what had happened to him. Izumi privately thought that if the kid was a conscript he could very easily have tried to desert. Whatever had happened, he was probably dead. Certainly if he hadn't been related to a minister no-one would have given a damn about him. Izumi certainly didn't care what had happened to him, although it had been stressed to him that if the boy had been imprisoned and his connection to their government had been discovered events could get out of control pretty rapidly. Izumi wondered why, if the kid was so important, he'd been conscripted anyway although it had probably been to avoid accusations of favouritism. 

So why the hell bother to find him? Izumi had no time to waste on false sentiment and felt no inclination to pretend he was even the remotest bit interested in what happened to one person he had never even met and, from what he had heard of the kid, would probably dislike intensely if they did meet. He saw the war in general terms, not personal ones. 

*** 

"Hirose!" 

The young man seated behind the desk, half-hidden by the shadows cast by the setting sun, did not betray any trace of surprise at the sudden invasion of his privacy, nor at the intruder's shouting of his name. Very little truly surprised Hirose Nanjo anymore-he had long since learnt to mask his emotions and so seldom betrayed any emotion at all. There was no time for emotion for a man in his position. 

He was thirty-two years old and the leader of a large and powerful nation, making decisions on behalf of his ailing father, the true head of state. His father, though he had been a powerful man in his day, was now frail and old, incapable of performing the duties expected of him in his position as ruler. Whilst to all intents and purposes his father was the true leader of the nation, Hirose was the one who made the decisions and had been doing so since he was twenty-eight. 

"Hirose!" 

The nation he ruled was considered powerful and aggressive and considered by many to be the place the conflict originated from. Hirose knew different. In reality the country was falling apart. There was no money left for the war effort, the infrastructure was falling apart at the seams, and with every day that passed it grew harder and harder to govern effectively. Already two of the outlying provinces were in outright rebellion-a rebellion which there was no money to quash. But for the good of the nation and the war effort, the country had to be seen to be united. No-one knew for sure how long Hirose would be able to maintain the deception. 

"What is it, Akihito?" Hirose looked up from the papers he had been scrutinising prior to signing them to see the familiar figure of his younger brother Akihito, the head of the country's secret police. Even by the standards of the average secret policeman, Akihito was considered ruthless, bloody-minded and petty. The ministers and servants considered him childish and unpredictable, Koji saw him as a waste of space. Hirose privately felt at least partly responsible for his younger brother's lamentable lack of social skills, having encouraged him to become unhealthily dependent on him from an early age. Akihito was now twenty-four years old and showed no particular inclination to break away from his elder brother-indeed, he seemed to consider him infallible. Anything he heard from his elder brother was like a decree from the Gods. That he heard from others was to be rejected out of hand. Such was the mind of Akihito. 

"Koji's gone." Akihito said, a small but satisfied smile playing on his lips. Akihito despised his younger brother, whom he saw as a cuckoo in the family's nest. His father had never had much time for him, but following Koji's arrival at the residence-an illegitimate child, no less! the son of one of his father's many mistresses who had finally tired of playing mother and decided the child should become the responsibility of his father-he had more or less totally ignored his second son, except to criticise him. Koji's arrival was also what had caused Akihito's own mother to abandon him with his father-she had left due to the existence of the child, and had never contacted her son again. Akihito had grown up hating Koji. For his part Koji was indifferent to whether Akihito liked him or not. 

The only reason Akihito had bothered to tell Hirose that Koji was gone was that it gave him an excuse to enter his brother's offices uninvited. He had no desire to see Koji found, but he loved Hirose's company above all other and took any opportunity which would allow him to spend time with him. 

"Gone?" Hirose cared a little more for Koji, but only due to his rank. Koji was a general in the country's army-a position he held solely by his birth as he had little to no interest in the military-and therefore his safety was a matter of importance. Personally Hirose saw his brother in much the same way Akihito did. 

"Yes… he's gone." Akihito smiled again, wider, this time showing his teeth. Akihito's smile was raw, childish, crazy, and had very little to do with happiness. 

*** 

Eri Ijima was, in the eyes of her colleagues, probably the world's worst spy. 

No-one knew quite why Eri was a spy at all. She had been recruited solely for her looks, it seemed, in the hope that she would make a good honey trap. To be fair to Eri, she was good-looking-some would have called her beautiful for she was delicate and thin with long blonde hair and wide blue eyes-but that was as far as it went. It had been discovered after her engagement that her intelligence was minimal. She had a head full of air and an inability to grasp the simplest of concepts-like the need for discretion. But she, like Katsumi Shibuya, had a relative who worked with their country's president and therefore she kept her job-despite the fact that she had no talent for it. Eri had wanted to be a spy and, thanks to her father, a spy she remained. 

Eri was stupid but her boyfriend Kunihide loved her. No-one knew why he was so devoted to Eri for he was an attractive young man and could certainly have picked and chosen as far as women were concerned. But he had chosen Eri. Kunihide was devoted to Eri and had loved her for many years, a fact which the young woman seemed singularly unaware of. The full extent of Eri's stupidity had become apparent when she saw a photograph of Koji Nanjo and had fallen madly in love with the beautiful young man, despite the fact that he was cold and ruthless and fought for the other side. 

As a spy, Eri had been sent to Koji's country, to the capital. She claimed to be a secretary for one of the government ministers, worked in the crumbling government building and never found any useful information on anything. She had nearly blown her cover several times. She kept a scrapbook of all the pictures of Koji she could find and, alone in her tiny flat, she would watch the news religiously every night in the hope that she would see his face or hear him speak. 

Three nights ago, she had been thrilled to discover, whilst at work, that Koji had decided to take a more active part in governance. Maybe, just maybe, she'd finally get to meet him and then… Eri Ijima had sighed deeply and surrendered to her absurd fantasies with very little struggle. 

*** 

Koji had a dream too. It was not a particularly noble dream but it was his dream. He wanted to get away from his family altogether, not because he did not support their ideals, not because he was a pacifist or a humanitarian (far from it). It was because he didn't care. He didn't care if his family was killed in the fighting, he didn't care if Hirose respected him or not, it didn't matter in the slightest if Akihito despised him. He had left their control. 

He had gone, but he hadn't told his brothers where or why. His father knew. Koji had told him what he intended to do, and his father had agreed to the idea. Koji relished the thought of taking control. He was seventeen, he was ambitious, he was as ruthless as Akihito and as resourceful as Hirose. Every inch the politician. He was beautiful, well-connected and talented. He was sure of his own ability to dominate his own land, and the land against whom he was fighting. 

He had not gone for good-just for long enough to make arrangements. He wasn't content to spend the whole of his life in Hirose's shadow. He had waited long enough. He was impatient-he wanted to rule, he felt sure that he would be able to turn the country's fortunes around. He would take over the country, take over the war effort. Koji knew the country was in a state and he blamed it solely on his father and brother. 

For Koji, "family loyalty" was just a pair of words. His family had not got where they were today by playing fair or upholding all the rules. They had been ruthless in their day, but somewhere along the line, or so it seemed to Koji, they had lost their drive and the country had likewise lost its way. Hirose appeared to be following his fathers path, but that way could only lead to sterility and defeat. His way was better. His way would work. 

He had a dream. It was not noble, but it was his. 

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	2. Part 2

Miyuki's Zetsuai Page Zetsuai 1989/Bronze   
Under The Moonlight, Part 2 By Miyukichan 

Katsumi was attempting to devise a way to kill time without having to resort to the "I went to the shops and I bought…" game-which both he and Yoshiya detested but infrequently played because it meant they could have an argument and clear the air, normally over whether or not Katsumi was cheating by using product names-or the "so, tell me about your family/schooldays/sex life" type of conversation which also tended to end in arguments. 

To this end he was attempting to remember all twenty-one verses of a horribly catchy song he'd learnt eight years ago at school and had last sung six years ago, but was getting repeatedly stuck on verse seventeen. After five minutes of thought he decided to abandon it as a lost cause and was wondering what to do next without waking Yoshiya-who had been asleep for almost half an hour now and got really irritated if people woke him up without a damn fine reason for doing so-when someone opened the door and said his name. He looked up in mild surprise. 

Despite the fact that it wasn't really the done thing for someone in his position he said "What?" It came out a little angrier than he had intended. Not that he minded. He didn't want to be here anyway and really didn't care if people knew it. "The captain wants to see you," replied one of the men standing at the door, who appeared to be the spokesman for the rest. He didn't feel any further explanation was necessary though the vagueness of the statement worried Katsumi. He had half-expected something like this from the first. Someone, somewhere (he assumed) had worked out the connection between Shibuya the government minister and himself. He'd hoped it wouldn't happen but it looked like he was out of luck. Again. 

Well, whatever it was they thought they were going to find out from him, they were going to end up disappointed. He wasn't going to tell them anything about his uncle and didn't know enough about the army to be a security risk anyway. So why not just let them ask? Whatever happened, it would help kill some time, and time was something he had to excess right now. 

*** 

In a small, cramped office in the government building, Toshiyuki Takasaka was an anxious man. Like Izumi's bad temper, however, this was not really something extraordinary to comment on as it was more a description of his natural temperament than a sign that anything was the matter with his own little world. Takasaka gave the impression of being a man who lived inside his head most of the time, for whom the outside world was an irritation. He was a diligent worker, prone to panic over trivialities but well able to keep calm in emergencies. Physically he was unprepossessing-he was of slightly less than average height, had nondescript black hair, wore glasses and tended to dress soberly. Not exactly unusual attributes in government officials. He also had a slight resemblance to Hirose Nanjo, but got flustered if anyone mentioned it. More or less ignored by his co-workers, he was the kind of person who could, and would fit in anywhere and yet still manage to retain his anonymity. 

But today he actually had a reason for his nervousness and its name was Eri Ijima. 

Like Eri, Takasaka was working as a spy and had been active for the last six years. He was much better at his job than the blonde girl was and had only made one major slip-up during the whole time he had been in the country, which had fortunately gone undetected. He knew Eri was also a spy, but she didn't know he was. Takasaka had been relieved to find out that the girl-who seemed blissfully unaware of quite how mind-numbingly awful she actually was at her job-believed herself to be the only spy working in the government offices as this meant she was unlikely to be able to compromise his position. 

He had been incredibly troubled to discover her Koji fixation (and her Koji scrapbook), and even more so to accidentally come across the poor soul carrying out "espionage" by rummaging through her boss' desk drawers to look for important documents. Feeling sorry for her, he had tidied the drawers up for her after she had left to hide her clumsy search. He'd retrieved the documents she'd left in the photocopier too, and had put them neatly back where they came from. A part of him felt he should offer her some advice, but he couldn't help without revealing his own position to her, something to be avoided at all costs considering what a totally awful job she was making of spying. 

It was only a matter of time before Eri Ijima made a fatal mistake, and when that time came it would be all he could do to stop himself from being dragged down with her in the investigation that would no doubt follow. Takasaka had always had plans ready for escape should the secret police became interested in him-definitely a prudent move in light of the Eri crisis. He had no intention of ending up anywhere near Akihito Nanjo. 

*** 

Takasaka's nervousness was not unfounded, for Eri had less time left than she realised. 

It was unusual that Akihito Nanjo, as the head of the Secret Police, took an interest in small-time spies but he had to admit to being intrigued by Eri Ijima. He had no idea why such an incompetent spy had been sent out in the first place. Late one night last week he had come across her by accident whilst looking for Hirose in the government building-she had been wandering around the offices, looking, or so she claimed when he questioned her, for her handbag without which she couldn't get back into her apartment. He had helped her search for it and she had made several attempts to flirt with him, which had only earned her his total contempt. Akihito didn't care much for women in general and Eri was such a particularly annoying example of the breed. 

His curiosity piqued by the strange encounter, the following evening Akihito had sat at the computer in his bedroom with a cup of coffee for company and hacked into the government computer system, which technically speaking he was not cleared to access-his father's mistrust of his second son's motives had put paid to that. Not that such matters as security clearance bothered him. He had a natural talent for using computers, and an even greater one for knowing just how to manipulate the system to get at what he wanted, and therefore found it easy to pull out Eri Ijima's personnel files. He had not expected his suspicions to be confirmed, but the vagueness of the information presented perturbed him. Everything was just a little too neat. He made the decision to find out more about Ijima, and had sat up well into the night finding out everything he could about the girl whilst the coffee went cold beside him. Whilst all the documents he discovered seemed to be in order if worryingly bland, the lack of information on her past and the irregular nature of the hours and company she kept led him to the conclusion that she was some kind of spy. And a pretty inept one at that. 

He suddenly felt exhausted. Rubbing his tired eyes with the back of one hand, he printed a copy of all the documents he had found so that he or one of his subordinates could examine them at greater length, got up from the computer and looked at the clock. It was twenty past two in the morning. He hadn't noticed the time passing and he had some stupid council meeting in the morning… not that it mattered, he could sleep there, but Hirose might get cross. Well, he'd just have to risk it. Although he didn't like upsetting Hirose-and his falling asleep in supposedly important but quite stupendously dull meetings normally provoked criticism, although Akihito was able to sleep with his eyes open and escape detection that way-there were times when it just seemed inevitable. No matter what he did he seemed to upset someone, although he had long since stopped caring what the world thought of him. Akihito stretched, yawned and decided to go to bed. He wouldn't get much else done tonight no matter what. 

Lying on one side in the dark he smiled to himself, secretly. The girl was so stupid it was unbelievable. She had not been even remotely worried by being approached in the office by a young man with a razor smile dressed in the smart black dress uniform of the secret policeman. Even if she hadn't lived in the country long she could hardly have failed to be aware of the activities of the secret police, could she? Really? And despite her obsession with Koji (well, how else to explain her tedious one-sided conversation revolving around Koji's love life?) and by extension the rest of the Nanjo family, she had failed to recognise him, something which had not insulted Akihito as he hated everyone except Hirose. He had no wish for some stupid girl who had too much time on her hands to bore him rigid with her pathetic theories on Koji, whom she appeared to want to marry, and if she had become aware that he knew Koji he would never have been able to get rid of her. Well, she'd soon change her tune if she actually met him. 

Oh well. He decided he would let her carry on for a bit longer. He had given her enough rope and was sure she would find some ingenious way of hanging herself with it. She would implicate herself soon enough-saving his men the job of having to prove she was a spy-and when she did he would arrest her. She was so inept she posed very little threat to security. It was as simple as that. Acting sooner would have removed the problem, but why not wait? He knew who and where she was-let her think she was getting away with it. Besides, it would be funny to watch her. 

Akihito had fallen asleep a contented man. 

*** 

Yoshiya, who had been attempting to pass the time by doodling in his diary and not worrying about what had happened to Katsumi whilst he'd been asleep, was startled by the sound of footsteps. It wasn't time to eat yet, was it? He couldn't have fallen asleep again without realising it, surely? Glancing quickly at his wristwatch proved his point: it was four in the afternoon. Way too early to get anything to eat. Shame, he was very hungry. Lunch had been practically inedible and they hadn't been fed either last night or this morning. He didn't know why… retribution for some bombing raid or something, maybe. His side had done it so he had to suffer for it. Which was utterly ridiculous if you thought about it, as he couldn't possibly have had anything to do with it, but he knew he couldn't say his people were any better to their prisoners of war. No one was kind to prisoners of war; it appeared to be one of the natural laws of life. 

Someone opening the door interrupted him in his thoughts. He sat bolt upright on his bed, suddenly alarmed, his diary falling unheeded to the floor. He didn't like the feeling of this at all. It was all wrong. He couldn't remember the last time that anyone had actually needed to open the door as opposed to just shove things through the flap… He really didn't like the direction his thoughts had taken and he hoped like crazy there was an innocent explanation for the door opening which he hadn't considered. 

There wasn't one. Try as he might he couldn't think of one. There was certainly no innocent explanation for Katsumi's behaviour on being shoved roughly back into the cell. He'd fallen awkwardly onto his front as if he was hurt but after the door had been slammed, he'd got to his knees, turned and yelled an obscenity at the closed door then collapsed back to the floor and begun to cry quietly. It wasn't like him to swear-it was one of the things Katsumi just didn't do unless in circumstances of dire provocation-and although he'd been upset on a number of occasions Yoshiya had never seen him cry. It was a matter of pride with him. 

Getting off the bed, he walked over to Katsumi and put one hand on the boy's shoulder. Katsumi stiffened then pulled away from his touch like he'd been burnt. He'd stopped crying. If it hadn't been so worrying Yoshiya would have laughed, it was such an overreaction. If Katsumi didn't want him to touch his shoulder than he could just ask, couldn't he? "Are you alright?" he asked. It was a stupid question. Of course he wasn't alright. "What do you think?" Katsumi said. He did not look up. "I'm not sure, what do you think?" Another stupid question. Clearly Katsumi wasn't in the mood for joking so why the hell did he have to say something so asinine? Mentally cursing himself for not thinking, he tried another tack. "Is there anything you want to talk about?" "No." There didn't appear to be anything to say to that so Yoshiya decided, wisely, not to force the issue and went to sit down on the bed again, picking up the diary on his way. He sat with the little book held shut in both hands and wondered what the hell he could do. He hadn't liked the implications of Katsumi's disappearance at all and had hoped that he was totally wrong as to the reasons behind it, but yet again his hopes had been shattered. Clearly he'd been right to worry. Not that worrying had done either Katsumi or himself any good at all. 

Katsumi stayed where he was, resting his forehead on his arms and attempting to pull himself together, or if that was impossible to at least maintain the semblance of calm. He didn't feel up to facing Yoshiya yet, or Yoshiya's inevitable questions as to what had happened and why. He didn't even want to think about what had happened. Maybe then he could pretend that nothing had… and he was just going to have to pretend. There was no way he could tell Yoshiya. He wouldn't understand. But it wouldn't help to stay silent either, would it? It was just stupid to try to pretend nothing had happened… 

Oh god. Why? What had he ever done? There had to be a reason. Katsumi felt sick. He wanted to be alone although the silence would have driven him mad. He wanted to talk to Yoshiya-wanted Yoshiya to look after him-although he knew he could never have that, not anymore. He wasn't worth Yoshiya's time. Why would Yoshiya want to waste his breath on talking to someone like himself? Could he even trust him? He wanted to kill someone, anyone, that bastard with brown hair. He wanted to die. 

He wanted to die. 

After the already uncomfortable and artificial silence between the two had stretched the tension in the room to breaking point, Yoshiya decided he should give it another go. He went to sit by Katsumi and, having exhausted the entertainment potential of his fingernails, begun to stare at the cracks on the ceiling. He hadn't felt this awkward since his sister had announced that she was engaged to his best friend. What on earth could he say? He felt he should speak but had no idea where to begin. There didn't appear to be anything to say which wouldn't sound grossly insensitive or totally stupid or both. 

"Takafumi?" Yoshiya turned, startled. He hadn't expected Katsumi to be the one to break the silence. "What?" he asked, not unkindly he hoped, and moved closer to his companion who was now sitting up but seemed unable to meet his eyes. It was then that Takafumi noticed the bruises on Katsumi's pale skin, the cut on his forehead, the buttons missing from his shirt. "I'm scared." Katsumi replied, practically whispering as if he was confessing a sin. He covered his face with his hands and began to cry again. Yoshiya clumsily put his arms round him, not quite sure if he was doing the right thing, and the boy responded by clutching his shoulders and crying into his shirt. Why was he doing this? Couldn't he tell how degraded he was? How could he bear to get close to him now? 

Noticing Katsumi had begun to tremble, Yoshiya pulled him a little closer, but he had no idea if he was doing so to comfort Katsumi, or to comfort himself. He was afraid too, and what made it worse was that he didn't even know for sure what it was that he was frightened of. 

*** 

After spending another fruitless day attempting to discover the whereabouts of the determinedly lost Katsumi-missing, presumed dead despite all the time and effort he had spent on trying to work out his whereabouts-Izumi was incredibly frustrated and was taking it out on his dinner and on the boy sat next to him. 

"What the hell do they think I am, some kind of private detective?" Izumi asked angrily, reinforcing his point by slamming his cup down hard on the table, causing some liquid to slop out over the edges and form a small puddle around the base. Kimie Mori, fifteen years old, Izumi's best and probably only real friend, considered by most of the others on the base to have a masochistic steak a mile wide for tolerating him, was by now used to Izumi's outbursts and wisely kept quiet. He had known Izumi for six months and had realised after a very short period that Izumi actually seemed to like to complain, and that when he yelled he wasn't looking for advice or sympathy or even understanding but just someone to sit and listen who wasn't then going to tell everyone all that he had said by noon the next day. Kimie was good at that, being fairly restrained by nature. He gave Izumi a sideways glance and waited for him to carry on. "If they want to find this kid so badly what's wrong with a missing-persons agency? It's not like he knows anything of value or he provides an indispensable service to the war effort." 

Kimie thought different-he'd heard enough about Katsumi over the last few days to realise that his uncle's position made him a danger to security. Katsumi may not have known anything of value about the war but unless he was very stupid he couldn't have failed to remember some of the things that he had heard during his lifetime. Some of which would be important. But to say so would have been conversational suicide and would have only have made Izumi angrier so once again Kimie resisted the urge to say what he thought and paused for a while to think of a way to reply. 

Eventually he settled for "Surely it can't be that hard to find him?" Izumi snorted derisively. "Don't be stupid. If he's deserted he could be anywhere. Last thing I can find out about him he'd just finished basic training and was posted to here. Then nothing." "Nothing at all?" This was curious, to Kimie's mind. Most people left a slight bureaucratic trace of themselves when they moved around. Conscripts left more than most. Either Izumi was overstating the problems he was having or someone, somewhere had made a serious mistake. It seemed more likely to be Izumi's fault. "The train he was on got bombed. He's not listed amongst the dead so he either ran off or got arrested. Either way there's no way I could be expected to find him. If he's run off he's probably died of exposure or got himself shot or something and if he's in prison there's no simple way to trace him." Izumi replied. The irritation and frustration was obvious in his voice-Izumi was very bad at hiding his feelings. It just didn't seem to occur to him to do it. If he was angry, he was angry and that was all there was to it. He saw no reason to spare anyone's feelings. "No simple way? So there is a way then?" There were times you just had to comment no matter what your nature. Izumi gave Kimie a dirty look. "Just whose side are you on anyway?" "That's very childish, Izumi. It's not a question of taking sides…" he sighed. Sometimes Izumi could be so unreasonable. "But surely if it's an order you should do all you can to obey, right?" Izumi sobered a little. Kimie was right here. Orders were orders after all. "It's a ridiculous amount of time and effort for just one boy." He said, determined not to be robbed of his grievances that easily. "That's for sure." Kimie agreed, stirring his already tepid tea more through force of habit than anything, then turning back to Izumi. "Don't you think it was a bit stupid to send this Shibuya to the front if he can cause this much trouble just by disappearing? If he had to be conscripted at all why not give him a civilian job?" Izumi sighed. "He has got a civilian job. He's working in communications. He was just posted here. I've seen a picture of the kid. There's no way he'd get sent to the front line. He's a damn liability, that's what." Izumi fell moodily silent, probably contemplating just what he'd do to Katsumi Shibuya if he ever did meet him, then spoke again, in an angrier tone. "Then again when did you last come across a recruiting officer who actually thought about what he was doing?" 

Izumi felt pretty strongly about the matter of conscription. As a regular he found some of the deadbeats he got landed with through compulsory service to be not only an irritation but also a total liability. They didn't know what they were doing, their commitment was minimal and they seldom, if ever, seemed intelligent. Most of the bright or resourceful conscripts were taken by the Air Force or if they were in the Army tended to ended up as non-combatants-like Kimie, who had ended up in the medical corps, or this Katsumi. The people who got posted into the army and over whom Izumi had command tended to have some kind of personality problem. Izumi himself had a personality problem, but if you mentioned it to him you could practically start counting your life expectancy in minutes. 

*** 

"Koji!" 

Koji had been standing in the middle of the snow-covered garden, watching a watery sun sink below the horizon which had been punctured in several places by the silhouettes of the ruinous skyscrapers, but on hearing his name called, he turned incuriously to discover who it was who was interrupting his thoughts. He wasn't at all surprised to see Akihito standing a short way behind him, dressed as ever in black and looking at him with an expression of undiluted hatred on his face. Koji laughed softly at him, pleased to note that his laughter caused his brother to glare at him. If it was possible, Akihito's look of hostility had increased. "Akihito, if you dislike me so much why do you chase me?" he asked softly, levelly. He knew his tome would infuriate Akihito. The man hated Koji's indifference and he could do nothing about it. "Because Hirose has been looking for you." Akihito turned away, then looked at Koji over his shoulder. "I didn't want to find you." "And I didn't want you to find me." Koji's voice was still level but something in his tone caused Akihito, who had been about to leave him, to start and turn back to face him. Just what was Koji planning? Akihito tried to have as little contact with Koji as was at all possible but he knew his half-brother's moods. He knew the danger signs and Koji's behaviour told him that there was something going on. 

Akihito had not been given his position, nor had he been taught surveillance techniques, in order that he should start spying on the members of his own family, but he knew Koji. He knew Koji's character, he suspected Koji's latent ambition. Koji was a danger to the state. To their family's name. 

To Hirose. 

Akihito had privately sworn never to let anybody hurt Hirose if it was at all within his power to stop it. He knew that Koji's behaviour caused Hirose a great deal of worry. He wouldn't let Koji keep on hurting Hirose the way he was. Koji couldn't carry on the way he was, it was wrong. 

Koji smiled. Once he was in power he would get rid of Akihito. The man was tedious; he had always got in the way of everything and everybody. Koji and no real respect for his father but he felt that the old man's dislike of Akihito was just right and natural-it never occurred to him to think exactly what Akihito might feel about it. 

Koji had no concept of family loyalty, anyway. 

The two men looked at one another for a while, neither willing to break eye contact. Akihito unwilling to make even this small concession to the brother he detested, whom he felt was the cause of so many of his problems, Koji unprepared to give Akihito that satisfaction. Eventually Akihito tore his gaze away, muttering a curse under his breath, then turned on his heel and stalked off toward the house, a dark ink-stain on the white canvas of the garden. 

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	3. Part 3

Miyuki's Zetsuai Page Zetsuai 1989/Bronze   
Under The Moonlight, Part 3 By Miyukichan 

"Miss Ijima!" 

Takasaka's good intentions had got the better of him. For the life of him he couldn't just abandon an unwitting, ignorant (and, if he were to be fair, just plain stupid) girl to the less than tender mercies of the Secret Police without at least warning her of the dangers of carrying on in the way she was. He had found it impossible to sleep for the last few nights, first from guilt, then from fretting about how he was to approach her discreetly. He had eventually settled upon the idea of calling her to one side and mildly rebuking her for speaking too freely of supposedly confidential matters in the canteen and hope she would get the hint. 

Eri started-someone was calling her. Curious, she turned wide blue eyes to discover who it was and what they wanted and hoping that it was a cute someone. Looking at her, Takasaka felt his heart sink. The girl was even more vacuous than he had at first thought-he could see very little evidence of intelligence behind those eyes, for all that they were pretty. Takasaka, like most of the intelligent men who came into contact with Eri, was making the discovery that the old cliché was true-beauty was only skin-deep after all. Eri was a pretty girl, but he could see now that she probably had little of any moment to say. 

Eri smiled flirtatiously. The man in front of her was, in an understated and wholly unconventional way, kind of attractive. He would make good practice. She hadn't flirted with anyone in a long time and needed to make sure she was at her best for the day she finally met Koji. 

"Can I help you?" she asked, and blinked at him a couple of times. "There was something you wanted to see me about?" Oh God, thought Takasaka. She's trying to flirt with me. She thinks I've got a crush on her. He blushed a little, something he often did when he was flustered. He hated his habit of blushing, but couldn't control it. "I… it's not like that." Eri instantly felt cheated and stopped smiling vacuously. "What is it like then?" She immediately decided that the man was gay. He had to be to not find her attractive. Eri's looks meant that many had called her beautiful and she was unused to the idea that she was not every man's idea of a good catch, although some men did not find vacuity at terribly attractive trait. Eri didn't normally speak much to men who weren't undressing her mentally and found it difficult to deal with normal conversation, as opposed to flirtation. She certainly hadn't encountered criticism for quite some time. Takasaka counted to a needlessly high number then spoke again. "It's about your behaviour." "What about it?" She was on the defensive now. "Your manner. It's… indiscreet. You shouldn't speak so freely of what goes on here at work…" Takasaka began, by now thoroughly embarrassed. Why oh why had his country, which he'd previously always trusted entirely, decided that such a vacuous girl would make a good spy? Why couldn't he work up sufficient moral indignation to actually make sure she listened to him? And clearly he would need to give her a very simple message if it were to actually settle in her head for any length of time and not get lost amongst all the fluff he felt almost convinced was nestling between Eri's ears in the place of grey matter. He counted to an even higher number before carrying on. "Miss Ijima, I know you are new here, but in future when you are dealing with confidential matters please use a little more subtlety." There. He'd done it. Hopefully the half-witted girl would have got the message… 

If their situations had been reversed, Takasaka liked to think that he would have picked up the connotations. Being spoken to in such a manner would certainly have made him keep a low profile for a few days, and only resume his normal patterns once he was absolutely sure all the danger had passed. Somehow, he doubted the reprimand had worked on Eri. He saw no concern in her eyes, just wounded pride and defiant anger. 

Well, he'd have to wait and see. He hoped he had been wrong in his assessment of Eri's intelligence, but somehow he doubted it. It seemed to him as if her head was not so much full of air as full of candyfloss. 

*** 

Four thousand miles away, Izumi sat on his bed and sighed. So it had come to this. He'd been given an impossibly elaborate and expensive way in which to kill himself. 

"This probably isn't what you want to hear, Izumi." A few hours ago, Kimie Mori had walked up to him with an awkward look on his face, hesitantly handed him a manila envelope, then had walked quickly off before he could ask what the hell he thought he was doing. Retrospectively, Izumi could guess it was to avoid an argument. He'd opened it, curiously, although he didn't expect to find anything he wanted to see in it-Kimie's expression had told him that much already. And he hadn't. Somehow, someone had traced that Shibuya kid. One of their spies had probably found something out. Izumi really hated spies. 

He really hated government ministers too, sometimes. Why the hell did they have to have families? Or rather, why couldn't they keep their home lives and their professional lives separate? 

The reason for Kimie's embarrassed expression had been twofold, most likely. He knew Izumi hadn't wanted to waste any more time on some half-assed mercy mission for someone only important because of his relations. Although he hadn't actually said it, Izumi would have been perfectly unconcerned to hear that the boy he was looking for was dead. It would have been sad for his family, sure, but life goes on. Kimie, therefore, felt awkward revealing that he was alive. What had happened was probably just about the worst possible scenario: he'd been arrested and imprisoned. That meant, naturally, that the Powers That Be wanted him rescued as soon as possible before he could inadvertently reveal something important, which he probably would. Izumi knew, fortunately not from personal experience, however, that the enemy could be incredibly… persuasive when it came to interrogating prisoners of war, and that was ones who had no real political significance. Katsumi did have significance, but only if you made the connection between him and his uncle. Yet Minister Shibuya's nephew wasn't so important that it was necessary to send more than one person looking for him, and that one person was Izumi. 

If Izumi ever did manage to rescue that kid, he'd let him know exactly what he felt about this totally stupid situation in no uncertain terms. That said, he had to admit there was an incentive to find him now, if only on humanitarian grounds which Izumi didn't have much time for. 

Izumi flipped through the contents of the envelope again. There wasn't much. A photocopied map, a travel pass which would get him to the front line (after which he was on his own-thanks a million, guys), some faked identity papers, a few pieces of information, also photocopied, and a picture of Katsumi taken about four months ago for no obvious reason other than that someone had wanted to take a photo of him. It was slightly better than the last one he had seen, but not by much-he still looked like a pretty airhead who wasn't quite sure where the camera was. He was assured that the boy hadn't changed much since then, though he privately doubted that. Four months could be a very long time indeed, especially when one was in prison. 

*** 

It was nearly midnight and Yoshiya couldn't relax. He had too much on his mind for that. Holding a sleeping Katsumi in his arms, he lay on one side on his bed gazing at a discoloured spot on the wall, and sighed like a man with the weight of the world on his shoulders. Almost a week had passed since Katsumi's mysterious disappearance, and… 

…Not that it was so mysterious anymore. For most of the day, Katsumi had been on the verge of telling him what had happened, he'd said he'd wanted to talk early that morning and Yoshiya had guessed why that was, but they had barely spoken at all until mid-afternoon, by which point Katsumi had found the silence unbearable. Yoshiya still didn't know why he had felt compelled to talk about it at all. Maybe he'd thought it would help relieve the strained atmosphere between them, maybe he'd felt that talking would help him overcome something, or maybe he'd felt that he had to tell him… to warn him? Maybe. 

Katsumi had been raped. Yoshiya realised he really should have expected it to be something like that, and indeed in a way he had, for all that he'd hoped that whatever had happened hadn't been that bad, yet to hear Katsumi actually say it had appalled him and it had shown. He could tell by the look in his companion's eyes after he'd finished talking. 

It had taken him a good few minutes to realise that Katsumi had assumed that he had been disgusted by him, not by what had happened. 

Yoshiya had only a vague idea what reaction Katsumi had expected to what he had revealed, although he had a horrible feeling he'd expected him to be angry with him. His apprehension had not been entirely unfounded, as Yoshiya had been angry and had spent much of the remainder of the day attempting to suppress his temper. His anger hadn't been directed at Katsumi, though, which appeared to be what had been expected. Katsumi, though, had spent much of the last four days blaming himself for what had happened (to his mind, he had to have done something to deserve it. Katsumi had spent much of his childhood believing, as a lot of children did, that bad things only happened to bad people and although he now knew, intellectually at least, that the world didn't work like that, he still felt as if he'd somehow brought his situation upon himself.) and he had expected Yoshiya to feel the same. Yoshiya had thought that particular sentiment was total rubbish and had told him so. It wasn't his fault; there was no way it could have been. 

Not his fault… Yoshiya had no way of knowing if Katsumi had believed it or not, but if necessary he would prove it to him. 

Yet he couldn't sleep. Nerves, he guessed. Yoshiya was incredibly afraid of what would happen if the same thing happened to him, and it seemed more than likely that it would. He wasn't sure he could cope with it. He also felt frightened for Katsumi-he knew the boy would not be able to cope if it happened again. Logically he knew that there was nothing on Earth he could do to protect himself without laying himself open to even worse, and he certainly couldn't protect Katsumi (which, he realised, he desperately wanted to do. He didn't want anyone to be able to hurt him again although he knew logically that in a place like this all you could really do was look out for yourself, and sometimes not even that). He'd never felt so powerless in his life. 

Yoshiya sighed again, and shifted position a fraction in an attempt to stop his shoulder from becoming completely numb. Katsumi stirred slightly, but did not wake up. He'd been unable to relax for a long time, and as a result was deeply asleep through sheer exhaustion. It would take more than that slight movement to wake him up. Yoshiya ran his fingers through Katsumi's hair and noticed with surprise that he looked pretty whilst he was asleep, despite the fact that he'd lost quite a lot of weight since they'd met, and he hadn't exactly been overweight to begin with. Now he looked distressingly thin and incredibly vulnerable. Childish, even. 

But then, that was the whole problem. Katsumi was childish. He shouldn't have been at war or even anywhere near it. Some boys of his age could cope perfectly well with the business of being at war, but Katsumi was one of those who couldn't. Yoshiya wasn't sure he could cope with it either. Some people just weren't meant to be soldiers. 

*** 

Akihito had been so absorbed in thinking of silly little Miss Eri Ijima that he didn't notice Koji had disappeared again until a few days after the young man had left the house, and even then it was only by accident. He had been sitting in one of his rooms, busy on his computer where he was attempting, just for the fun of it, to hack into the military computers the hard way and whilst there to check if there were any traces that someone had been tampering with the system, when he had overheard a pair of maids talking outside about how sad it was that Koji-Sama wasn't there any more. He had immediately stopped working and had sat listening intently to the conversation, whereupon he had discovered that Koji had left the house four days ago and had not been seen since. 

He had immediately taken it upon himself, after first yelling at the maids for not telling anyone in the family of Koji's disappearance, to inform Hirose of the development. Standing in the gloom of his elder brother's office, he had felt a surge of gratification. Hadn't he said all along that his little brother was not to be trusted? Finally, after thirteen long years, he had been taken seriously. 

Looking up, Akihito met his brother's eyes. "Hirose, do you want me to send out a search for him?" 

Hirose paused for a moment, thinking. Koji was impetuous and irritating, but he was also important. He was also determined enough to resent his position as Hirose's inferior, and intelligent enough to carry through any ideas he may have had about seizing control. Whatever he was planning, he had to be brought back to his family. By himself, Koji was a threat. Since taking control, Hirose had feared Koji's ambition. Of course, Hirose had plenty of other things to worry about, so he hadn't allowed this to spiral over into paranoia, but hearing that Koji had left the house altogether and could be anywhere was a major cause for concern. If there was nothing untoward about Koji's disappearance and he had merely become bored with the dullness of his life, there was still the danger of what could happen were he to be captured. Koji was a distinctive-looking young man; there would be no doubt in the minds of their enemies as to who they had managed to capture. 

Whilst Hirose remained unaware of where Koji was, he remained a danger to security. Therefore… 

Therefore, ascertaining his whereabouts was a matter of some urgency. Akihito, as the head of the Secret Police, was the natural person to head a search for him. Akihito hadn't struck any of the family as the most obvious choice for the job, but there was no doubt in anyone's mind that he was very, very good at it. If it hadn't been for his holding down this position and his infatuation with Hirose, Akihito himself could easily have ended up posing a security risk himself, but as it was, he was no threat to the family's position at all. He was also probably the best person in the country to come to if one needed to find someone or something in a hurry. The communications networks of the Secret Police were practically infallible. 

"Yes, send out a search, Akihito. But when you find him…" Hirose paused. There was no doubt in his mind that Akihito would manage to find their wayward brother, but nonetheless, he had to make sure that he didn't get carried away. The Secret Police, though effective, also had a reputation for casual brutality that disgusted most liberal-minded men. "When you find him, make sure you don't… damage him. I want him back here unharmed." 

The only safe place to keep Koji was here. Effectively under house arrest. 

*** 

"Izumi? Where are you going?" "Don't be stupid, Mori. You know damn well where I'm going." "But I didn't think… You're leaving now?" "Yes, now. Obviously. They want the whole thing over and done with in a week." "But that's…" "I know! You don't have to tell me. Who the hell would give bloody STUPID orders like that?" "You know where you're going, don't you?" "Yes, not that it matters. Anyone with half a brain can see this is suicide. Even if I do manage to find this kid, how likely is it that I'll be able to get him back? What a stupid waste of my time." 

The idea of going on suicide missions had never bothered Izumi much before, but that was because he'd normally seen the point to them-certain sacrifices had to be made for the greater good. There didn't appear to be any point at all to this one. If he'd had anything to do with it, he'd have left Shibuya to it. He'd got himself into the situation, let him get himself out. Just because he had important relatives didn't mean that he himself was any use at all to anyone save those in his immediate family. It wasn't so much the principle of what he was going to do that he objected to, it was that he had to do it for someone of such negligible importance. 

Izumi wouldn't have minded putting his life on the line to go and rescue a captured spy, or a high-ranking soldier… or even a competent soldier. But doing it for a conscript who hadn't, judging from the reports the man who had trained him had submitted, been a terribly good soldier anyway and who had twice been court-martialled for minor acts of insubordination (one involving a hardback book-Katsumi's claims that he had been acting in self-defence had cut very little ice) went totally against all Izumi's value systems. 

"Don't be surprised if you never hear from me again, Mori." "Now you're the one who's being silly. You've always come back before and you've done far more dangerous things than this. You never know, if you succeed then you could easily get another promotion." 

*** 

Koji climbed gracefully and purposefully out of his clumsily-parked car and, hands in his pockets, looked around the base. It was only forty miles from the front and a bit too close for his own comfort (Koji had never experienced war up close and the sound of distant explosions was unnerving him slightly), but it was quite large and would do for what he had in mind. The fact that it was so out of the way meant that it would be harder to find him, after all, and if all went to plan he wouldn't be here long enough to be traced anyway. 

He had placed a phone call to the CO of the camp a few days ago, saying that he was coming over to do an inspection. Considering that he was a general (albeit an unwilling one who hadn't really wanted the rank), that at least provided him with a plausible cover-not that he really thought anyone would question what he was doing, but it would help to have some kind of alibi when his brothers discovered he'd come to this base. 

It didn't take much to work out what Koji was really planning. He had wanted Hirose gone for a long time, and with the right kind of support-military support-he could do it easily. If the country was to win the war, they needed a strong leader and Hirose, for all his qualities-not that Koji dwelt overmuch on them-tended to err on the side of caution when it came to policymaking. That was what Koji thought would win public support over to his side. What was more, his father would have put up only a token resistance had Koji been to depose Hirose-Koji was, after all, his favourite son and more than capable of doing the job. 

Practically with his father's blessing, Koji had left with the express intention of raising an army to overthrow his brother. 

Lighting a cigarette, and smiling in a manner which would have reminded anyone who knew his family of Akihito, and with good reason considering how mirthless and cold it was, Koji walked into the camp. 

*** 

That evening Eri went back to her flat and fumed. She had forgotten everything that Takasaka had said to her, and hadn't thought of actually taking any of it in, let alone wondering what his motives may have been. All she could remember was that some dumbass guy with glasses had hijacked her whilst she'd been going to lunch and proceeded to accuse her of being stupid and incompetent and indiscreet and she knew that she wasn't any of those things! 

Eri thought he'd even gone so far as to imply that he didn't find her attractive. How could that be? Didn't he have eyes? Surely everyone found her attractive! To Eri, it was inconceivable that she should be considered as anything but. Her father was always telling her how pretty she was, and Hisaya thought she looked beautiful. She had blonde hair and blue eyes and surely that was all she needed? She was the only person she knew with looks like that! Oh, apart from Koji, and he was special… maybe their similar colouring was another clue that they were destined to be together? 

(Actually, although she didn't like to dwell on the occasion, she wasn't the only one who looked like that. She'd once met Katsumi-prior to his conscription, the fact that they both had relatives in the government meant they both had to go to official engagements, something which she enjoyed and he found incredibly tedious-and he had similar colouring… the difference was that his eyes were intelligent. The reason she didn't like to think about it was because she'd absolutely failed to get anywhere with him, after she had been talking to him for about fifteen minutes he had told her straight out that he didn't want to talk to her any more because he was finding it boring. It wasn't normally his style to be so blunt but he'd been dropping subtle and not-so-subtle hints that he wanted to be left alone for all the time they had been talking.) 

Well, no one did that to Eri Ijima. NO ONE. She would get that stupid ass if it was the last thing she did. She'd get him. She'd set him up for something. He was a government official-he had to know some important stuff. She'd look through his desk drawers as soon as she got the chance and make sure everyone knew someone had taken his stuff then everyone would know that he was the incompetent one. 

Ha. That would show him, wouldn't it? 

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	4. Part 4

Miyuki's Zetsuai Page Zetsuai 1989/Bronze   
Under the Moonlight, Part 4 By miyukichan 

Despite his misgivings, Izumi had found it surprisingly easy to get to the place he'd been told Katsumi was being held. For a start, it was closer to the front than he had been led to believe, and he had found it easy to cadge a lift from a soldier who had been taking supplies to the base. He hadn't needed the faked papers yet and not even the man who had given him a lift thought there was anything suspicious about his travelling companion. A little sullen and uncommunicative, perhaps, but nothing out of the ordinary. The dark blue uniform he had been provided with had seen to that. If he had been wearing his more usual grey he wouldn't have lasted five minutes, but whilst at the front he had thought to ask for an enemy uniform. 

No-one had thought to provide him with one, though, had they? Izumi took this as further proof that the bureaucrats didn't know what they were doing. First of all they had sanctioned this stupid mission in the first place, secondly they hadn't even prepared it correctly. He still couldn't believe he was doing this for the sake of some airheaded blonde conscript he'd never heard of. 

He'd found it easy to get inside, too. As well as possessing faked papers Izumi had a natural confidence (some would have called it arrogance) and consequently found it very easy to look as if he fitted in once he'd got past the guardhouse. He had been fourteen years old when he'd worked out that if you did something wrong but acted as if the way you were acting was the only way to do it, a lot of the time people just let you get on with it. 

That said, he knew enough to know that getting in had been the easy bit-things were likely to get much more complex from here on in. Finding one prisoner out of at least a thousand who were being detained was never going to be an easy thing to do, and as for getting out of the camp, Izumi had no idea how he was going to do it. Brazen his way out? 

*** 

Eri Ijima sat in her apartment, dressed in a pair of short pyjamas and little caring about the lateness of the hour or her own exhaustion. Over a week after the event, she was still smarting from the reprimand she had gotten from Takasaka over her supposed "incompetence". But she knew better. She was not incompetent! She knew exactly what she was doing and if the idiots here didn't believe her, she'd just show them! Kunihide said she was resourceful, and he knew about these things. He was clever and smart and he liked her. He was no Koji Nanjo but he was a good friend and he had said she was a good spy and that was all that mattered. 

"Incompetence", hah! Eri fumed to herself. I'll show that ass who's "incompetent". I'll just get him fired and then he'll be sorry. She shuffled through the documents she had taken from Takasaka's desk, fully intending to put them back early in the morning. Sat at her computer, she leafed through the documents. She would prove to them that she was a great spy. The information contained on these would be good enough for her to get at least official recognition and perhaps a better job. 

Then she could meet Koji and finally he would be hers, the way it was always meant to be. And once she was Koji's mistress she could find out all sorts of important stuff. 

*** 

Outside Eri's dingy apartment building, a black van pulled up. It was unmarked. The windows were made of tinted glass-impossible to see into. In his small, darkened room across the street Takasaka, who had been watching Eri's suspiciously lighted window through a chink in the curtains, saw the van and shivered involuntarily. He knew what that van meant. He knew who they were and why they were there even if Eri didn't-and she clearly didn't. He'd heard the girl had met Akihito Nanjo after work once and had no idea of the danger she had been in every minute she had spent with him. 

Looking anxiously round the flat, he wondered if there was anything he could use as a weapon should the van have anything to do with him. If necessary, he'd kill himself before they could get to him. It would be a desperate action, and not one that came naturally to him-he was not the impulsive type, or at all inclined to make a martyr of himself. Takasaka knew, though, that killing himself would be an easy death compared to what the Secret Police could and would do to those they suspected of spying… 

Happening to look out of the window again, he felt a sudden rush of relief as he saw the black-clad men disappear through the doors of the apartment block across the street. They had not come for him. Not this time at least. He wondered who they did want, only to realise that the answer was obvious. Eri. It had to be. It was all over for her… 

But how long did he have left? 

He walked over to the closet and pulled out a suitcase. It looked like the time had come for him to disappear, to leave the country and do it quickly before Eri could be forced into making any kind of confession. That way lay safety. He couldn't risk being caught in the backlash, as her revelation would undoubtedly have led to a tightening of security. He had managed to survive a couple of these, but he couldn't see himself being so lucky this time. By this time tomorrow he would have made contact with his own people again, if all went to plan. In under a week he hoped to be back home and ready to resume his own interrupted life, free from the twin worries of discovery or betrayal. But goodness only knew where Eri would be by then, or even if she would still be alive, he thought guiltily as he hastily began to pack his few possessions into the open case. 

He hated to think about what would happen to the poor girl now the secret police had caught up with her, but he had to worry about his own safety first. That was one of the things that had been reinforced time and time again during his training. If the worst comes to the worst and you have good reason to suspect that you are about to be discovered, don't wait to check. Get away. Don't worry about anyone else-they'll only hold you back. You had to leave them to their own fate, not let them worry you. He had to get himself out. He'd tried to warn her and he'd failed through no fault of his own. There was no way now he could help her without immediately becoming a suspect himself. 

To Takasaka it seemed worse than heartless to just abandon her, but what was there to do? 

*** 

If Eri hadn't chosen to put her Walkman on, she might still have stood a chance of escape-however slender-but she had decided to listen to an old tape. It would help her keep awake whilst she sat at her computer and inexpertly attempted to hack into the Government computer system (when Akihito was later informed of what she'd been trying to do and how she'd been attempting it, he couldn't help but laugh). It would be a long night for her, and she hoped that she would be able to keep awake at work tomorrow. If it hadn't been for the fact that one of the girls she knew at work, Rumi, was leaving to get married, she would have been home earlier-as it was, she had only just made curfew. 

Eri sighed, and rubbed one eye with the back of one hand. She hated computers with a passion. Okay, so the net made it a lot easier to find out some things, but that didn't change the fact that they were near-impossible to get the hang of. She had to use computers all day at work and having to use them at home as well… it was too much and her eyes were hurting… she hoped that sitting up late over a computer screen hadn't damaged her eyes. She didn't want to have to start wearing glasses-it would make her look ugly. 

She didn't hear the footsteps on the stairs, didn't hear anything until the door to her flat was forced open. She tore off the Walkman headphones, turned in surprise that rapidly turned to panic on spotting the black-clad, heavily armed men pouring in through the door and fumbled for the off-switch on the computer. She looked desperately around for a means of escape, but there was none save the window, and that would have meant certain death. 

Eri hadn't realised that the men in her flat meant certain death too. 

*** 

Akihito's sudden decision to arrest Ijima had been caused by Hirose voicing his fears over Koji's disappearance. He had more important things to do now than keep tabs on a stupid blonde girl's half-assed attempts at spying. He had to make sure Hirose was safe. Hirose had wanted Koji found, and he was going to concentrate all his efforts into finding Koji. When Hirose needed something done, Akihito would do everything in his power to ensure it was done. 

Eri had to be got out of the way. She may have been an incompetent spy but there was no way Akihito could run the risk of her accidentally, by sheer dumb luck, stumbling on something important. That would have been disastrous, and Akihito had also to remember his own position. If it got out that he had known of the existence of a spy, even such an incompetent spy as Eri, but had done nothing about it, then he could have ended up arrested himself. He could have been accused of treachery, and the very thought of treachery toward Hirose filled Akihito with horror. And as for the thought of being taken for a traitor himself… 

One of the reasons for Akihito's fanaticism in hunting down those perceived as traitors to the state was the thought that in so doing he was protecting his elder brother, albeit from a distance. His father may not have deliberately set out to capitalise on the young man's affection for his brother in allowing him to take his current job, but it was a good way to work. 

*** 

After wandering around inside the prison for what seemed like hours, Izumi was getting irritated. He hadn't felt confident enough to actually check on the inhabitants of the cells he had passed at first, and when he finally had started to look he was already fed up of the place. It was cold, too dark and he was convinced it was damp as well. Basically, it was the kind of place to induce insanity, and pretty quickly. 

Fortunately for Izumi, Katsumi was a distinctive-looking boy-his hair colour alone saw to that. Blonde hair was uncommon enough to make it a notable feature, and it had been stressed to him several times that Katsumi did not, to the best of anyone's knowledge, dye his hair. Such a thing would not have been permitted in the army anyway. That meant it was simply a matter of finding him, not finding a number of similar-looking boys (small, slender conscripts who looked as if they should have still been at school was not as uncommon as sight as could have been hoped) and trying to work out which was the one he was looking for. 

He found the boy after an hour and a half of searching-quicker than he had expected. He hadn't expected the boy to have a cellmate though, and he certainly hadn't expected them to look so similar. "What do you want?" the one in glasses who plainly wasn't Katsumi Shibuya asked suspiciously, an undercurrent of tension noticeable in his voice. The one who was Shibuya was looking warily at him as if he were afraid. On first impressions he seemed to be much tenser than Izumi had been led to believe. Izumi couldn't help but notice that he looked as if he'd recently been crying. "I want to talk to Shibuya." "Don't you guys ever give up? You `spoke to' him less than two hours ago! Can't you wait until the poor boy's at least had time to catch his breath before you start on him again? Why can't you just leave him alone?" 

Yoshiya had had enough. He couldn't care less who this person was, what they wanted, or what they could do to him for answering back in this way. He'd had enough of everyone in this stupid place acting like they could do what the hell they wanted to Katsumi just because he wore a different-coloured uniform and had a slightly different accent. If Katsumi was too scared to fight back-and right now he seemed terrified, which was hardly surprising given the circumstances-he'd have to do it for him. 

Katsumi closed his eyes and sighed. He felt nauseous and his throat still hurt from screaming. No matter how hard he'd tried, he hadn't been able to stop himself. Please, don't let me cry this time, he thought, and realised that it was impossible. Two hours they'd left him alone… It wasn't long enough, it was barely long enough to come to terms with what they'd done. The fact that they'd done it again was bad enough. 

"Look, it's okay. I'm not going to bite him. I want to get him out of here." "It's not that we're worried about!" Yoshiya snapped back. "And why should we trust you?" "I'm here to get him out. I don't want to hurt him." Izumi repeated. "I'm not going to do anything to him." What the hell was he meant to do now? Counselling? He had always expected problems, but he hadn't expected one of them to be coaxing Katsumi out of the prison. He'd heard someone tell him once that when you opened the door of a prisoner's cell, the first response was often bewilderment, but he hadn't really believed it. 

Katsumi found his voice. "I'm not going anywhere without Yoshiya." He was surprised by how calm he sounded, when he felt so frightened. Izumi had expected this almost from the moment he realised Shibuya had a companion. "That's not a problem," he replied. It was, kind of, but he didn't really care. Again, not through humanitarian grounds-he thought it would make it simpler to convince Shibuya to leave. Seeing that he still looked uncertain, Izumi tried again. "I'm working for your uncle. He sent me to find you." Katsumi still didn't look entirely convinced that Izumi was genuine, but nonetheless seemed to have made up his mind. "I'll go with you. But only if Yoshiya can come too." Puzzled, Yoshiya asked, "You think we should go with him? Do you trust him?" "No I don't, but I don't care. At least we'd be out of here! I can't stand this place, Yoshiya! I don't care what he wants, it has to be better than this!" Katsumi sounded near-hysterical-again, this was not a characteristic Izumi had expected him to have. Then again, who knew what had happened to him since he got arrested? 

*** 

Koji was bored. If there was one thing he had not expected to be during his grand plan, it was bored, but the endless platitudes of the base commander were sending him to sleep. He concentrated on staring out of the window behind the man's head at the snow-it was falling heavily again-and commenting only when the situation really seemed to demand it. 

"You don't say," he said for the tenth or eleventh time. 

The man didn't appear to notice he did not have his guest's full attention and continued with the long-winded justification for the base's continued existence which Koji really wasn't interested in. Maybe, Koji thought to himself, we could find a use for this man as a weapon. We send him into the enemy's senate and within three weeks the entire government would have been driven to suicide through sheer boredom. If that doesn't defy the Geneva Convention, that is. It was a puerile thought and Koji liked it. Puerile thoughts had got Koji through many a boring meeting with his family or the Army Council. Considering that he found listening to old men droning on about tactics he barely understood an only slightly less excruciating use of his time than the idea of spending it with his beloved father and elder brothers, it was hardly surprising that Koji's attention often wandered during such meetings. About the only thing Koji envied Akihito for was his ability to fall asleep with his eyes open, an ability which Koji dearly wished he had. 

Outside, it had begun to snow harder. Nothing moved outside save the idly drifting flakes. Most of the men on the base were working indoors-outside it was bitterly cold, and Koji knew for a fact that the wind was biting. He didn't envy the poor sods out in the front line at all. Not for the first time, Koji felt profoundly relieved to have belonged to a wealthy family. 

"You don't say," he said for the eleventh or twelfth time. 

Most, but not all. Through the window, Koji noticed a figure moving needlessly slowly given the weather. Surely whoever it was out there had to be freezing. He had to be completely insane to even contemplate going out on such a horrible evening as this, or desperate enough not to care. Intrigued, Koji shook himself out of his daze and watched the figure more intently, searching for a clue as to their identity but disappointingly discovering none. 

Looking up again he noticed the figure had been joined by two others. None of them looked dressed for the weather. Right, that settled it. There was no way he was staying in this dingy little room with this boring little man when there was a far more interesting world waiting for him just outside the window. For too long Koji had been stuck on the other side of the glass. Feeling more and more perplexed by the second and determined to discover just who these people were and what they were doing, Koji made his excuses to the startled base commander and after hastily pulling on his coat, left the room to intercept the small group outdoors. 

*** 

"It's bloody freezing!" Katsumi said unnecessarily, and coughed. He'd had a cold coming on for the last few days. Secretly, Yoshiya was very worried about him. Being out in this weather would probably make Katsumi get very sick very quickly. "Be thankful that it is." Izumi replied tersely. "There'll be less people around to ask what the hell you two are doing here." Not for the first time, he cursed himself for not thinking to find a change of clothing for his companions so they would at least have been able to get out of the base without being spotted. Strangely enough, Katsumi couldn't quite find it in himself to be grateful that he was outdoors in the middle of a blizzard, but freezing to death was preferable to slowly going mad. Maybe that just meant he was mad already but he couldn't have stayed in there. Whatever Izumi wanted with him, he at least had some chance of escape. If the worst came to the worst, he could always find some way to get away from Izumi, even if he had to hit him over the had with a rock. 

Yoshiya was the one who first noticed the tall man watching them, and his eyes widened slightly with shock and panic. He wished he'd taken his chances with the authorities back home and refused to enlist. He didn't want to be here, in enemy territory with a brown-haired lunatic on a suicide mission as his only hope of escape. Not that he held out any hope for that. If they managed to get out of the base alive-a pretty big if given the fact that they had been spotted-there was no guarantee that they would be able to get anywhere else. 

*** 

Koji stopped a few yards away from the three people he had seen through the window, looking at them. Close to, they looked even stranger. There was a feeling that the three of them didn't seem right together, an essential discord. A pretty mismatched group. He couldn't have said what it was that made him look a bit closer, to try and work out what it was that gave him that impression, but it was an impulse he nonetheless acted on. Koji acted on most of his impulses. 

The smaller two he glanced briefly at, and dismissed almost immediately. There was nothing of particular interest to him there. It was the third-the tallest of the group, the brunette he had seen first-that particularly interested him. There was something about him that intrigued Koji, though again, he couldn't have said what it was. 

"What do you want?" 

The brunette was talking to him. Turning, Koji saw that he was looking directly at him down the barrel of a small handgun. Koji smiled icily and looked directly at him. Despite the fact that Koji had led a sheltered life, he remained unfazed by having the gun pointed at him. It would take considerably more than that to worry him. 

"Nothing," he replied. The look in the man's eyes as he stared coldly at Izumi left Izumi feeling a little shaken, and almost as if the man had somehow been able to read his mind simply by looking at him, but he determined not to show his unease. He refused to allow his arm to shake even slightly as he held the gun, and continued to make eye-contact. To look away would be an admission of weakness in himself. By contrast, Yoshiya had taken a step backward and was frankly staring at the stranger, unable to hide his own alarm. 

"Tell me why you're here." Izumi said quietly, his voice practically lost in the wind, though Koji heard him well enough. "Because I saw you." Koji replied obliquely. "Who are you and what do you want?" Izumi asked brusquely, still pointing the gun at Koji's head. The man was a threat. Izumi might not have approved of the mission he was on, but now he was actually doing it, he was committed to it and was not going to fail his superiors. "My name is not important, and I want to know what you are doing here." Koji replied, his voice still perfectly level. Izumi laughed mirthlessly. "You're pretty confident for a guy standing on the wrong end of a gun." 

Standing a few feet behind Izumi, Yoshiya continued to watch the two in trepidation. Was there anything he could do? He doubted it. He had no weapons of his own and wouldn't have felt sure of his ability to use them even if he had. Despite the fact that Izumi was one of the most professional soldiers he had ever met, Yoshiya doubted his ability to keep this man at bay. The man was clearly dangerous. 

"Yoshiya?" Surprised at the interruption, he turned to look at Katsumi, who was stood next to him with a small frown on his face. He was not afraid of the stranger, Yoshiya realised with a start. He was almost becoming used to Katsumi being scared of things-almost, but not quite-and his sudden calmness unnerved him. "What is it?" "What do you want to hold my hand for?" 

Koji continued to stare at Izumi. He was fascinated by this man. If Izumi had found Koji's eyes cold and expressionless, the defiance and spirit in his own eyes mesmerised Koji completely. Who was he? Koji wondered. What was he doing here? He had practically forgotten the presence of the other two, and had totally failed to notice their uniform. They just weren't important. 

So many things just weren't important. 

The only thing that mattered to Koji was this strange young man in front of him. He didn't even know the person's name, but that didn't matter. It didn't matter that the young man was gazing at him with intense hatred. It didn't matter that he had no idea who the person was. None of it was of any significance to Koji. All he knew was that the man in front of him was more important than anything else in his life had ever been, and he wouldn't let him walk away from him as suddenly and easily as he had appeared. 

And Koji was used to getting his own way. 

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	5. Part 5

Miyuki's Zetsuai Page Zetsuai 1989/Bronze   
Under the Moonlight, part 5 By miyuki-chan 

"Do you have any idea where we're going?" "No. Do you?" "I suppose if we follow the sounds of gunfire we should reach the front eventually…" "Oh, that's stupid. We could be wandering round out here for days." "Got any better ideas, then? Or a map?" "No and no. How's your cold?" "I'm okay." "Sure?" "Look, don't worry about me, I'm fine. Really." "You don't look fine." "For god's sake! I'm okay. Stop worrying about me, it's making me nervous." "At least the wind's died down." "…we could make a snowman." "I don't know why I bother with you. You're a total flake." 

Despite his despairing comment, Yoshiya couldn't help but feel slightly relieved by Katsumi's sudden change of mood. He wasn't behaving in anything like the same way as he had before they'd been arrested, but it seemed to be a slight shift back to his normal behaviour patterns. Maybe he wouldn't ever be totally back to the way he had been, but for now it seemed to be enough for him just to be out of that damn camp. Yoshiya had to admit to feeling a slightly hysterical relief at being free, maybe Katsumi felt the same way about it. Or maybe Katsumi was just more of a survivor than he had assumed. 

In truth, Katsumi was forcing himself not to think of what had happened. Maybe if he could fool everyone else that everything was alright with his world the way he always had before, when it so plainly was anything but, he could carry on fooling himself. 

"I wonder what happened to that captain…" Yoshiya began quietly. "I hope he's alright." "He's an idiot." Katsumi replied, a note of admiration in his voice that belied his words. "But I think he'll be okay. People like that normally land on their feet." Unlike me, he thought, but kept it to himself. No need to worry Yoshiya unnecessarily, and saying something like that would worry him. Katsumi could tell that his friend was tense enough already. 

*** 

As far as Izumi was concerned he was fed up with this mission already. He'd done all he could to make it a success, but he wasn't sure it was enough. He didn't feel entirely happy with letting Shibuya and the other guy with him (Izumi realised he couldn't remember what the man's name had been) go it alone, but what else had there been for him to do? This man Nanjo didn't look like he would be satisfied with a brief conversation then thank you and goodnight. It had seemed to Izumi that extricating himself from the situation would take some time. In the event he hadn't been able to do it at all. 

The gun. He hadn't felt able to fire. It was one thing to kill someone in the heat of battle, but quite another to shoot someone who looked you in the eyes as if he could read your mind and smiled calmly in spite of the gun levelled at their chest. The other man was totally in control of the situation, it was obvious even at a glance. As for Izumi, he was very quickly losing it. If it hadn't been for the gun he dreaded to think what would have happened the moment that they met. 

He had lost it, even though he had been the one with the gun. He could only thank God that the Shibuya kid had the presence of mind to get away. That would have been too ironic: getting the kid out of one prison only to have him get in even deeper trouble with some blonde psychotic. 

But Koji hadn't been interested in Katsumi or Yoshiya. If he had he'd have stopped them from leaving, but he hadn't. He was totally indifferent to them. It made no difference to him where they were, as long as Izumi stayed where he was. 

*** 

"General Nanjo!" 

Koji half-turned, a look of mild irritation on his face, to face the new arrival. Not now! This pushy little man couldn't intrude on him now! There were so many things he still needed to ask the strange, wild-eyed young man in front of him. So many things that he suddenly had to know. The interruption, for all that it was far from deliberate, seemed to Koji to be a personal slight and a deliberate attempt to keep him from achieving his aims. 

Koji didn't like it when someone tried to stop him from getting what he wanted. 

He had been about to yell at the arrogant guy who thought he knew what was happening when he stopped himself. Just in time. This situation could work to his advantage. If these soldiers hadn't intruded, the boy in front of him would have tired with their little battle of wills. He had the gun; therefore he supposedly had the advantage. Koji had no doubt that the boy was capable of using it and supposed that he would eventually have used it on him had these three men not intervened. He had no idea of Izumi's own reluctance to shoot him. 

But now, he had no choice but to stay. 

He stood back and watched as the first man, flanked by two other soldiers who were both aiming their guns at the stranger, succeeded in disarming the boy, then dragged his arms roughly behind his back and handcuffed him. Koji saw no reason to intervene as of yet. He did not wish the boy to find out his intentions. He would conduct this deal in private. If all went well, no-one but himself and a few of the men on this base would even know that this arrest had taken place. Akihito would certainly not hear of it. Much to Akihito's chagrin, the secret police held no power over prisoners of war. Koji had never really thought much of this minor bureaucratic loophole before, but now he was thankful for it. 

His and his alone. 

*** 

Akihito sat sprawled in an armchair in the room he jokingly called his study, in actuality the place where he did most of his computer hacking, received his few official visitors, or chose to interrogate those of the Secret Police's prisoners he took an especial interest in. 

He held the telephone to his ear, the cord, which came from the phone on the desk, stretched almost to its limits. He didn't care overmuch. He only sat behind the desk when he wanted to use the computer, or when he wanted to look official. He remembered his father sitting in much the same manner when he received visitors. Hirose did the same thing. To Akihito's mind, Hirose was far more impressive than his father had ever been. Akihito knew his father was dying and wanted him to get on with it so Hirose could become the head of the family. Several times, he had toyed with the idea of speeding up the process a bit. 

"I see." He said quietly into the phone (a rare occurrence. Those who knew Akihito well would not have listed quietness as one of his qualities), and listened in mild interest to the squawking garble that came out from the other end. He knew it to be the voice of his second-in-command, reporting on the arrest of Eri Ijima. He had ordered it yesterday afternoon, the order had been carried out last night. 

He thought he would conduct some of the interrogation himself. It would help pass time until he got the reports back on the whereabouts of the delinquent Koji. Or until Koji got back himself. Koji normally found his own way back home after a while. He got bored quickly. 

"Send me a copy of all the files on her computer." Akihito enjoyed virtual detective work. It would be interesting to see exactly what Miss Ijima had been doing with that machine. On the other end of the phone his second sighed, but knew better than to interfere. Akihito would insist on being the one to go through the computer records of his 'pet cases'. Those suspects and prisoners he took an especial interest in, such as Eri Ijima. The man had no idea why Ijima was so important, but knew better than to question his boss. People who questioned Akihito's orders tended to mysteriously vanish, as his predecessor had. 

Akihito had long suspected that there was a spy in the government offices. Yet it couldn't just be Ijima. Ijima had arrived out of nowhere too recently, and her incompetence suggested that there had to be others. She would be very useful - hopefully, she knew the identities of some of the other spies. Even if she didn't, he could make an example of her. He intended to make an example of her. Maybe a show trial, followed by a public execution. She deserved something more than a simple 'disappearance'. 

*** 

Many miles away, Takasaka stood outside a garage and shivered. He'd intended to get a plane out of the city, but there'd been no flights due to a severe blizzard less than twenty-four hours ago. He hadn't wanted to risk waiting in the airport. By the time it was safe to fly again, the secret police could already have extracted a confession from Eri. He had phoned into work sick, which would explain his absence for a few days at least, but questions would be asked soon enough, he knew. Someone in the secret police would probably make a connection. His sudden absence from work the day after a secretary was arrested for spying, the conversation they'd had a few days before her arrest… enough to justify looking closer into his circumstances, and when they did… 

It wasn't just the cold that made Takasaka shiver. 

He just hoped that the few days he had bought himself by calling in sick, coupled with Eri's natural defiance, would give him long enough to get out of the country before anyone realised exactly why he wasn't there anymore. Maybe he should have held off his departure for a few days, but there was no way he could have done. It was too dangerous. The secret police worked very fast. 

He'd caught a train into a nearby town, and from there he had rented a car using a false name and cards. Thankfully they had been accepted. When the threatened crackdown began in earnest, he would have to resort to paying with cash, which had always seemed to Takasaka to be the last resort of the desperate. Last night, he had got into contact with his boss and explained the situation as concisely as he was able, and had been relieved to discover the older man agreed with his decision to leave. 

Climbing back into the hired car, Takasaka looked through the bag he kept on the passenger seat, and breathed a sigh of relief on seeing that everything was still there. Once again, he discreetly checked the gun he'd been given all those years ago when he'd arrived in the country. He hadn't had to use it yet, but suspected that he would probably have to before he managed to leave, if only on himself. He wouldn't let the secret police arrest him. The clampdowns he had sat through had really frightened him. 

He remembered the show trials of the so-called traitors. They'd screened them on the television; it had been all the papers could talk about. Akihito Nanjo's speeches (during the first of these scares, he had been newly appointed, eager to show what he could do. Determined to make a name for himself. He'd done that all right), denouncing known traitors and promising tighter security, better surveillance, more arrests. The executions. They'd executed those they had found guilty in public, and not a single one they had so publicly tried was acquitted. People Takasaka had known for a fact had nothing to do with spying had suddenly disappeared. No-one ever spoke of them again. He'd been terrified that someone would speak of him to save themselves, but it had passed over. In time people seemed to forget but Takasaka couldn't forget. He couldn't have made it through another of them. There was no way anyone's luck could hold that long. Six years was a good length of time when you were a spy. 

He had chosen as inconspicuous a make and colour of car as possible, the agency hadn't asked questions, much to his relief. He drove away from the garage feeling relieved-every time he managed to leave a town he had stopped at without being spotted, it felt like a real achievement. Takasaka knew he was on borrowed time, relying on his own anonymity. There was a value in being considered practically invisible by your workmates. 

*** 

Koji put his foot down on the accelerator of his car, which unlike Takasaka's was far from discreet, and yelled happily as the car sped forward. Driving gave him a thrill. He loved the feeling of freedom it gave him, and for the young man who saw himself as a prisoner of privilege there was no greater feeling in the world than that of being able to do what you liked without anyone telling you not to. In actuality, people seldom told Koji what to do. He was too rich to be told 'no' by anyone but his father and Hirose, and even then he seldom listened. 

Izumi was finding it out the hard way. He sat in the back of the car looking down at his handcuffed wrists, angry at what he saw as his own stupidity. After that Shibuya kid and his friend had decided to make a run for it, he and Koji had continued their stand-off. Too long. Izumi should have realised. He should have backed off, run, caught up with the other two (how they would survive alone he did not know. If they died, it would be his fault-they had been his responsibility). But he could not run. This man would have seen such an action as displaying a weakness, he suspected, and he had stood his ground. Pride. A dangerous emotion. 

Too long. 

Although Izumi was well aware of what could happen to attractive young men who had the misfortune of being arrested (it clearly had happened to Shibuya, judging by his friend's reaction when Izumi had first met them), he couldn't help but wish he was taking his chances in that dingy prison. Whatever this General Nanjo wanted with him, (the young man seemed totally unlike all the high-ranking officers Izumi had ever seen in his own army-he assumed the position was to do with the man's family connections rather than his military skill) it would probably be just as bad as what he would find in prison, if not far, far worse. 

He wanted to ask the man driving the car where he was taking him, what he wanted to do with him, but he knew that he couldn't possibly. You couldn't do things like that. 

*** 

Yoshiya and Katsumi had been walking for over a day, following the sound of gunfire but still totally alone (and, Katsumi suspected, totally lost), when they came across the abandoned town and proved to Yoshiya that however bad you think a situation is, it can easily get a lot worse. They hadn't intended to go there-even from a distance there was obviously something very wrong about the place-but there was nowhere else to shelter and it was coming on for evening. The night before it had been bad enough, plus they hadn't eaten for hours and Katsumi was now very obviously unwell despite his repeated claims that he felt absolutely fine. 

Arriving in the town, however, Yoshiya couldn't help but wish they'd taken their chances elsewhere. 

"What the hell is this place?" Katsumi asked in mild alarm. "I don't think I even want to know what happened here." Yoshiya murmured quietly. He'd heard about places like this on the news and in programmes that he knew were ninety per cent propaganda but watched anyway. "I think I can guess." Katsumi replied. "This whole place gives me the creeps." 

The town was dead, deserted, but not the bombed-out ruins they had passed, remains of places that had the misfortune to be too near to the front line. This place was practically intact, but totally uninhabited. That was somehow worse than the bombed-out ruins had been, and Yoshiya hadn't liked them either. 

Despite his own problems, curiosity had got the better of Katsumi and he left Yoshiya standing in one of the streets and looked through the window of one of the houses, then turned back to his friend. "Yoshiya, come and see this." Yoshiya, apprehensive but equally curious, walked over and looked through the grimy glass. "Weird, isn't it?" Katsumi said, before starting to cough. 

Weird seemed about right. The house was empty, but through the window of the house everything looked pretty normal, probably exactly as it had when it had been inhabited, but it had just been left. Whatever it was that had occurred in this empty town, it had left the houses untouched. The inhabitants couldn't have had a clue what was happening beforehand. It was a frightening thought to Yoshiya. Katsumi, however, seemed more confused than anxious. 

"Why hasn't this place been looted?" he asked rhetorically. "What?" Yoshiya asked, though he wasn't really listening. "Normally, when towns are evacuated or whatever," Katsumi spoke slowly and deliberately as if he was addressing a small child-it seemed pretty logical to him, "whoever it is who's forcing the people out utterly trash the place after they've left." He hesitated. "Sometimes before. But anyway, most of the stuff is stolen and most of the buildings are damaged at the very least. So why not here?" Normally, he added to himself, people have been killed as well. "Good point," Yoshiya said, still preoccupied with his own thoughts. "You're not listening to me, are you?" Katsumi said crossly. 

Taking Yoshiya's continued silence as an affirmation of his belief, Katsumi pulled a face and walked off. He couldn't afford to stand around whilst Yoshiya finished whatever deep thought he was occupied in. Katsumi couldn't help but be painfully aware of his own physical condition and the need to find somewhere to shelter and get some rest. There had to be some place in this stupid town which was slightly less creepy. 

*** 

Later that same evening, Akihito Nanjo arrived at the headquarters of the secret police. He didn't go there all that often, and almost always arrived unannounced. He took a perverse pleasure in the surprise of the men and women that he considered his underlings, and their frantic scrambling to appear as if they were busy always made him laugh-even if he was only laughing to himself. He certainly hadn't announced his intentions of arriving this evening, but he wasn't there to savour the discomfort of the divisional commander. He was there to see Ijima. 

Normally, it would take at least fifteen minutes for someone to be allowed to see a prisoner, whatever their reasons for it may have been (of course, relatives and well-wishers never came near this particular prison, and those members of the public who contrived not to ignore the building altogether tended to Takasaka's views). Unsurprisingly, Akihito got straight through the security clearances and the bureaucracy. 

The lateness of the hour did not deter him from starting his interrogation of the stupid girl. After all, irregular hours and uncertainty as to what the time was were a well-established disorientation tactic. Akihito kept irregular hours himself, and the nights suited him-he tended to go to bed late and get up even later. And what Eri thought of late nights didn't really matter-all the better if she hated them. 

*** 

"God, that dumb kid!" Yoshiya muttered angrily. He hadn't noticed Katsumi's absence for at least five minutes after the boy had wandered off in search of… well, whatever it was he'd been in search of. Yoshiya doubted it was excitement. He had no idea where Katsumi thought he had been going-neither knew the layout of the town and they could both have wandered around in the stupid place for ages without once encountering each other. He hoped that wherever it was Katsumi had gone, he at least had the sense to stay there. 

He wondered what the hell his companion had been thinking in wandering off alone, only to realise that it was probably because he'd needed to find shelter. Several times in the last few hours Yoshiya had suspected he'd been near collapse. He had no idea how it was that Katsumi was still standing. Taking all that into account, it seemed far from likely that he had left the town altogether. So where the hell was he likely to be? 

From somewhere nearby he heard gunshots. Katsumi had not been armed. 

It took fifteen bad minutes to find Katsumi. Fifteen minutes in which Yoshiya constantly asked himself how he could have been so stupid as to let the kid go off alone. Fifteen minutes of feeling angry with Katsumi and himself. Fifteen minutes of speculation as to what could have happened, once again finding himself hoping for an innocent explanation to what had happened, and once again finding there was none. 

There seemed to be something about Katsumi that attracted the wrong kind of attention. 

Arriving in another eerily deserted street, Yoshiya finally found his friend lying on one side in the snow, blonde hair falling over his face, eyes closed, one hand resting on his left shoulder. Red on white. 

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	6. Part 6

Miyuki's Zetsuai Page Zetsuai 1989/Bronze   
Under the Moonlight, Part 6 By miyuki-chan 

Akihito had actually been on his way to Eri's cell when he remembered Kurosaki. He'd almost totally forgotten about Kurosaki in the last few days and it had been a tremendous oversight on his part. Kurosaki was, perhaps, even more interested in Akihito's pet cases than Akihito himself was, and this particular case would definitely appeal to him. Akihito could not consider the idea of proceeding with this interrogation without having Kurosaki with him. At the thought, he smiled widely. This girl would be in for a shock when Kurosaki started on her. 

Akihito's means of interrogating suspects rested on the tried and true principles of Good-Cop Bad-Cop, or as one of his subordinates had put it when neither he or Kurosaki had been around, Bad-Cop Worse-Cop. Akihito himself favoured playing the sympathetic interrogator, pretending to be merciful, trying to be nice. He was, after all, superior in rank if not in age to all of the men and women who worked for him. His second in these matters, the capable Kurosaki, had found playing the part of hard man very much to his liking. Junior to Akihito in both age-he was only just out of his teens, though you wouldn't have known it to look at him-and rank, he was in many respects the ideal partner for this job. If Akihito was to interrogate Eri, he was to do it with Kurosaki at his side. 

Returning to the front desk he ordered the girl he found sat behind it to summon Kurosaki for him. Akihito was unsurprised to discover that he had not gone home yet. He knew that even if he had, he would have been more than willing to come back. Though Kurosaki was far from a rule freak (he was seen by some of his superiors as having a bit of an attitude problem if truth were told), he nonetheless held Akihito in the highest regard. He liked Akihito, the feeling was reciprocated and the friendship kept him above suspicion. 

He arrived less than two minutes later. Kai Kurosaki was a tall young man, and not unattractive, yet there was something alarming about him. His one visible eye-the other was hidden behind a curtain of long blonde hair-was bright, not cold, but at the same time held a promise of malice. He was fairly slender and did not look that formidable, yet scores of-long since 'disappeared'-prisoners could have proved how deceptive his appearance was. Someone had once called him a lady-killer, and it was apt in both the literal and metaphorical sense. 

"Hi." One thing Kurosaki was not was formal. "Evening," Akihito replied. He didn't want to waste time on formalities. Here was his friend Kai Kurosaki who had come to help him out with a pet case, there was no need to stand on ceremony. "Case came up." He turned and began to make his way back to Eri's cell, Kurosaki following after a beat, hands in his pockets. "Thought so." Kurosaki replied with a smile. "And of course you wouldn't have dreamt of beginning an interrogation without my capable support. Who's the patient this time?" Akihito ignored the taunt. Kurosaki was just like that. "Eri Ijima. The world's worst spy. Sixteen years old. Blonde. Stupid. You'll like her." "I think I will." 

This would be a good night. 

*** 

Despite the lateness of the hour, Hirose was not yet asleep. It didn't seem likely to him that he'd be able to get out of his office for some time. Events were beginning to get ahead of him, and the complicated balancing-act that he was having to perform just to keep the country together was reaching it's natural conclusion: chaos, downfall and ultimate destruction of everything he had fought so hard to preserve. There was too much to deal with. 

There were rumours that their enemies were planning a major offensive with the intention of breaking the deadlock-this happened with a quiet regularity on both sides and had never been seen as a major threat before, and the only ones who were any worse off normally were the soldiers at the front and their relatives, yet this time it looked as if the enemy's plans might actually work. Their spies, for all that they had attempted to discover all that they could about the truth in the rumours were becoming frustrated, their attempts to discover anything at all about the plans were meeting with little to no results whatsoever. They knew they existed, they knew they were big. That was all. Even Nadeshiko hadn't found anything out. 

The rebellions in the provinces were still continuing. The troops he had sent in to try to restore order had been routed or killed. The rumoured offensive meant there was no way to send in any support. If what he had been told was true, he would need as many troops as possible to fight at the front. 

Koji was still missing. That morning, Akihito had arrived in his office to tell him what he had found out about the young man's whereabouts. The last time anyone connected with government had seen him, he had been at a small base near the front-line, presumably in an attempt to gain support for whatever it was that he was planning to do. Or had been planning. Koji was not the sort of man to wait around. If he had been attempting to conduct a military coup, it would have happened by now. That had been Akihito's views on the whole thing. That there was no need to worry. There had been several unconfirmed sightings of Koji (and his car) on toll roads and in service stations, the route seeming to confirm Akihito's belief that Koji was coming home, or at least moving away from the front. Even if he didn't come home, he probably intended to hole up somewhere. Apparently he'd had company, and he intended to play house with, in Akihito's words, 'whatever bimbo he was currently screwing' for a while. 

The same small front-line base had been the scene of another incident which had seemed minor at the time but was rapidly becoming a major embarrassment for the army command structure. Two prisoners-of-war had escaped from the base, presumably with outside help. A mild humiliation but the episode hadn't seemed like anything important and at first Hirose had no idea how he'd even come to hear about it. Yet the name of one of the escapees-Shibuya-had sounded familiar for some reason. A few hours later, a chance remark by Akihito (who had also seen the report: Hirose suspected him of having hacked into his computer again) had led him to realise exactly what had happened. 

"You'd have thought those guys would have taken more care. I'm sure there's a minister Shibuya in their government. Kid could have been a relation. It's not as if it's that common a name." 

A few hours' careful investigation of the enemy's computer systems on Akihito's part had confirmed his suspicions. There was a minister Shibuya. He had no children, but was the legal guardian of his nephew, a seventeen-year-old blonde, who'd been conscripted and had been taken prisoner a few days after finishing basic training through sheer bad luck and had ultimately wound up in a detention centre at that camp. Naturally, they'd wanted him back and had sent over some captain Izumi to get him back. And of course those idiots at the base hadn't even realised who it was they'd got. 

Hirose didn't show his feelings in the same way as Akihito did. Akihito was like an open book-almost anyone could read him. Hirose didn't let it show when he was angry, but years of being round him had taught Akihito to recognise the signs, and after telling him the bad news he had left in a hurry. Normally he would have taken any excuse offered to stick around. But Akihito had been busy more often than usual lately as well. 

There was too much to think about for Hirose to relax. Akihito had become preoccupied with his work again (something that happened every few months-Akihito would take on a 'pet' case and practically disappear until the person he was dealing with was safely six feet underground). Koji was gone, last seen dangerously close to the front line. There were plans for an offensive mounting. The army had failed to recognise the significance of a prisoner's name, and they'd lost a potential source of information and a useful bargaining tool when the boy escaped. It was unlikely that he would be recaptured: the front was so close it was likely that he'd manage to make it back to comparative safety if the cold didn't kill him first. 

His father-there was another worry he'd almost forgotten about due to the sheer number of other ones he had to deal with-his father was getting sicker. His doctors gave him less than two months to live. Already he no longer recognised Akihito-perhaps unsurprisingly, Akihito claimed not to care-or Hirose's wife, Kaoruko, and her infant son. Every time he saw Hirose, he asked him where Koji was. Hirose, loyal son that he was, promised that he would find the boy for his father, in spite of his own feelings of rejection and hurt at the sight of his father's preference for the uncontrollable Koji. 

*** 

"I'm cold." "Easy. It'll be okay." 

Katsumi didn't seem to have heard. He lay in the snow with his head resting in Yoshiya's lap and stared blankly at the rapidly darkening sky, occasionally blinking but otherwise making no movement. Yoshiya suspected he was in shock, even hoped that he was. At least if he was in shock he wouldn't be feeling any pain. 

Yoshiya anxiously bit one fingernail and looked around. Stay calm, he thought to himself. Stay calm. He repeated it under his breath as if it had been a mantra. He forced himself to think logically; he didn't want to stay, but there was no way he could do anything but. He certainly wasn't going to leave Katsumi after everything they'd been through and survived together. He wished he knew a bit more about first aid. He wished he had some way to defend himself. Most of all he wished he'd never been conscripted. 

"Say something," he said quietly. "Katsumi. Say something. Please." "…Madoka." Katsumi's voice was a near whisper. Yoshiya didn't quite know how to react. "Takafumi. You'll be fine. Can you hear me? Katsumi." 

Katsumi's injuries alone should not have proved fatal, Yoshiya knew that much about medicine. In an ideal world they wouldn't have. Yet right here and now they could very easily kill him. He was weakened already from the cold he had caught as well as from sheer exhaustion, not to mention that Yoshiya wondered if his friend had any real will to stay alive after what had happened to him over the past few weeks. He had a horrible suspicion that Katsumi would probably have regarded death as a relief. 

Madoka. He knew the name. Madoka had been Katsumi's sister, but she was dead now. Like most of his family was dead now. Katsumi had only ever mentioned his family in passing, but Yoshiya knew that both his friend's parents had died as well. 

"Katsumi, please." 

No reply. Yoshiya looked down at Katsumi-the boy had either fallen asleep or was unconscious again. Sighing, he straightened up and attempted to think of what to do next, fighting down his feelings of panic. Panicking didn't help, wouldn't help. There had to be something he could do… but he couldn't leave Katsumi here. He'd probably have died before Yoshiya had managed to find his way back-if he did manage to find his way back. Katsumi needed a doctor, or at any rate some kind of first aid which he knew he couldn't provide. Yoshiya took several deep breaths and started to count under his breath, something his mother had often done when she was upset and she had always claimed helped calm her. Either she had been exaggerating its effect or he wasn't the kind of person it worked for or he was too keyed up for it to make any difference… 

A sudden noise made him look up. Footsteps. This looked bad. Or rather, this looked even worse. Things were already bad. 

*** 

Getting back out of the car, Takasaka began to wonder if perhaps he hadn't made a mistake indicative of a case of advanced paranoia. Maybe he hadn't been found after all. Surely if the secret police had managed to trace him to this deserted place, he would have known about it by now. He wasn't even sure the person he'd seen standing a few feet away from him had noticed him at all. 

It had to have been total paranoia. Why else would he have shot three times at someone who wasn't even looking at him? Someone with his back to him? He knew he'd hit the person at least once, he'd seen him stiffen and fall. 

But could you afford to take chances when you were on the run from the secret police? The simple answer was that you couldn't, that anyone you did not know for a fact was a friend could be safely regarded as an enemy. Common sense said as much. Don't take unnecessary risks: one of the first rules for making a successful spying career. 

Looking down at the gun, he wondered what he should do. There were two ways things could head right now. He had either shot and wounded, perhaps killed a member of the secret police or the army who could have arrested him and taken him back to the capital, in which case he'd done the right thing, or he'd shot and maybe killed a civilian or an unarmed soldier or even a soldier from his own side-he was near the front after all-in which case he'd done something very wrong indeed. And the more he thought about it the less likely it seemed that the figure he had spotted had been any kind of a threat. 

Still holding the gun, he made his way anxiously toward the street he'd run from a few minutes earlier, common sense telling him to back off, stay out of it, that he'd only make things worse, but he could not back away. The nagging doubts were getting more insistent. The secret police wore black. Enemy soldiers; dark blue when away from the front, camouflage when on active duty. This person had been dressed in grey. 

Soldiers on his own side wore grey uniforms when working behind the lines. 

Cursing himself under his breath, Takasaka broke into a run. 

*** 

The first clue that Kimie Mori got of quite how drastically wrong Izumi's mission had gone did not become apparent until his friend had been gone for over a week. Slightly longer than he had imagined it would take, but there had been no reason to suspect anything had happened to him. 

Working with the medical corps wasn't exactly at the cutting edge of army business and normally by the time anyone bothered to fill people like Kimie in on events, the event they were describing had become ancient history. The only time it was considered worth keeping them up to date with current events was just prior to major offensives, when they had to be prepared for a sudden surge in casualty numbers. Although he would have denied it vehemently, one of Kimie's reasons for staying friendly with Izumi was that he knew what was happening in the base at any given moment. One of the most common phrases heard on the lips of orderlies and nurses was 'what's happening?'. That said, most of the soldiers envied the men in the medical corps. In most cases, it was a safe job and you had easy access to the nurses. Most people who knew him thought the job was wasted on Kimie because he didn't think that the company of women was such a big deal. But what else could you expect from a fifteen year old of, in the words of Izumi, 'indeterminate sexuality'? 

On the matter of Izumi's mission, however, Kimie knew just as much as the other people in the base on how it was progressing in that he knew nothing at all. Knowing Izumi personally, though, it seemed unlikely to him that he would abandon it halfway through regardless of how well (or otherwise) it was progressing, nor did he have any reason to assume that Izumi was in any way in danger. Nonetheless… 

Nonetheless. 

"Anyone seen Izumi?" 

No-one had. Izumi was gone. He had probably been captured or killed. Gone too long for Izumi. Gone too long full stop. The week he'd been meant to be away for had already passed. If Izumi's mission was meant to be over in a week, Izumi would have seen to it that it was. He was that kind of person. 

The worst thing about it was that there was nothing he could do to help. 

*** 

Eri had no idea what the time was any more. Since her arrest-two days ago, though she had no way of knowing that-she had been kept in a windowless cell, her isolation only relieved by the guards who had come to interrogate her. She had heard rumours of the methods that they used, but as of yet she had not suffered such treatment herself. She hadn't wondered why this might have been-an oversight on her part. She hadn't realised that she was being left alone because Akihito had told her potential interrogators that this girl was his and anyone who touched her would be answerable to him. Or worse, to Kurosaki. Akihito didn't work in this building full-time. Kurosaki did. He was a professional interrogator. 

Eri had been lying on the thin mattress construction that passed for a bed, still dressed in the flimsy pyjamas she had been wearing when she was arrested. The night was bitterly cold: blizzards had been forecast again. She was attempting to get some sleep (the light was left on all day and all night, and Eri had come to the conclusion that she should sleep when she was tired) when Akihito walked into the room. She sat up, her eyes widening in recognition. This Akihito Nanjo she had heard so much about since arriving was the man she'd met a few nights ago, the one she'd tried to flirt with. However, she did not quite realise what he was doing there-she still could not connect him with her current position, in spite of his uniform and his much-publicised links with the Secret Police. Another man stood a few feet behind him, smiling without a trace of humour. He wore red lipstick (decidedly non-regulation, this, even among the female members of the secret police, but Kurosaki got away with it because he was Akihito's friend) which reminded Eri of Koji, but she didn't recognise him at all. 

"Miss Ijima…" Akihito began, then paused as if he had made a mistake and smiled at her in a way that she finally registered as alarming. "Eri." 

Eri? But he didn't even know her! How dare he be so familiar? 

Eri had forgotten that it was common behaviour for detainees to be addressed by their first names. Another way of removing any pretensions to dignity that a prisoner might still be clinging on to. Despite this, his manner was friendly. A little too friendly. The wolf in fairy stories behaves in exactly the same way, just before he runs off to eat grandma. Behind him Kurosaki lurked like a ghoul, still smiling. 

"Eri," he repeated, "I have a few questions I would like to ask you. Come with me." 

Some would have refused and accepted the consequences, whatever they turned out to be-anything was better than being alone with this man… with these two men-but Eri smiled vaguely, uncomprehending, and got to her feet. 

*** 

"Sorry. I'm really sorry." 

Yoshiya, still kneeling in the snow, shook his head in disbelief. This whole situation, he thought to himself, is just totally, utterly stupid. "That isn't much good!" he replied angrily. "You just shot my friend! What are you going to do about it? Are you going to leave him to get on with bleeding to death or are you sorry enough to actually help us out here?" Who the hell is this guy? he wondered. One thing he didn't seem to be, if you asked Yoshiya, was dangerous. He seemed pretty inoffensive. So what the hell he had been doing running around the front lines carrying a gun and shooting at total strangers was a total mystery. Then again, Yoshiya realised the man was probably wondering exactly the same thing about Katsumi and himself. What the hell ARE we doing here? It was a good question. 

Takasaka was. These two were hardly typical soldiers. They weren't even equipped for the front line. They certainly weren't dressed for the weather. It was way too cold to be dressed so lightly, didn't either of them have a winter coat? More to the point, what on earth were they doing in enemy territory? Not that this was really the time to think about things like that. He could always ask them later… 

"I've got a car," he began hesitantly. "Good. Get us out of here." Yoshiya said. It was clear from the tone of his voice that telling him no would not be an option. Takasaka wouldn't have dreamed of refusing anyway. Staying here would be a death sentence for this pair. He might have killed one of them already. He didn't want to kill both. 

Takasaka had carried Katsumi to the car, followed by Yoshiya, looking anxiously around as if he expected any minute to be attacked again though he knew the town was deserted. But he'd 'known' the town was deserted before. That hadn't stopped this man… Takasaka… funny name, that… from being there as well. Yoshiya didn't know if he could trust him, but like the time they'd met Izumi, did he have any choice in the matter? The only alternative was staying put. That would have probably killed him and would definitely have killed Katsumi. What could you do in a situation like this? You had to take your chances where you found them. 

Takasaka had been driving down a rudimentary metalled road in silence for about ten minutes when he finally spoke to Yoshiya, who sat in the back seat holding his own gun in a mildly threatening way. He didn't know how proficient the young man was with firearms but at this distance he could hardly miss. Asking Yoshiya if he had the safety catch on seemed like a pretty good idea, but… he didn't want to risk offending him. He wasn't surprised that his new companion had misgivings. He wouldn't have believed in Yoshiya's good intentions had their situations been reversed. 

"Where are you trying to get to anyway?" Yoshiya shrugged. "Anywhere, as long as it's across the border. I need to get Katsumi to a hospital, but I don't mind where." He felt exhausted. It was warm in the car and outside night had fallen; all he wanted was to go to sleep. In spite of the brightness of the moon, he had no doubt he'd have managed it, but he tried to force himself to stay awake. He'd taken the gun off Takasaka, saying he didn't want to get shot as well, and held it loosely in one hand, the safety catch on. He still couldn't quite believe he'd agreed to this man's offer of help; he certainly didn't trust him. At least it was a chance at survival, though. Katsumi must have regarded Izumi's intervention almost two days ago in much the same way. Was it really only two days ago that they'd met Izumi? 

"How's your friend?" Takasaka spoke anxiously. "Still unconscious." 

Katsumi lay curled up on the seat next to him, covered with the thin blanket Takasaka had been sleeping under since leaving the city, his head in Yoshiya's lap again. His shoulder had been inexpertly bandaged with one of Takasaka's shirts, his arm immobilised in an attempt to stop the bleeding. Yoshiya couldn't help but wonder what he'd actually say to the boy when he came round-and he probably would, he wasn't that badly hurt after all; though a lot of it, worryingly enough, depended on whether or not he wanted to stay alive-how he'd explain it to him. He'd already decided not to tell Katsumi that Takasaka had been the person who'd shot him. It wouldn't have been politic. 

At the same time, he didn't want Katsumi to come round. They had no morphine, nothing that would help him cope with the pain. He was even half-considering hitting Katsumi with the butt of the gun he was holding if he did come round, in the hope that it would knock him out again. 

*** 

"What, exactly, do you want with me?" 

Izumi had at first been convinced that Koji's interest in him was wholly sexual, but that didn't seem to be it. He'd been with Koji for over a day and so far the man hadn't actually made a move. It had surprised him, going by the rumours he'd heard about what happened to prisoners of war, which he supposed was what he was, though his situation was far from typical. Maybe he wasn't actually in prison, but he was certainly a prisoner. Part of him felt that he'd rather he had been; at least he'd have known what to expect, more or less. 

He knew that Koji's motives couldn't have been a hundred per cent pure. The guy looked like a vampire, there was something horribly carnal about him. Koji was seen by those who knew the two men as rather similar to Akihito's sinister friend Kurosaki (if anything, Koji was regarded as the less alarming of the two, but Izumi wasn't to know that). Not to mention that Izumi, a total army brat, had never come across a single high-ranking member of his own country's army with a halfway similar attitude. Never come across a general so young. 

Then again, his side promoted people through merit, not birth. 

Koji didn't actually know what he'd wanted from Izumi, apart from to make sure he didn't get away from him. He wanted to know him in every sense of the word, but was trying to force himself not to think of Izumi. Koji was not, as some would have been surprised to hear, totally amoral. He didn't think it was natural to have such strong feelings about a soldier he'd never even met before and another man at that… 

He'd have to ask Nadeshiko to find something out about this Izumi for him next time he got into contact with her. Nadeshiko was good at things like that, after all; she was a great source of information. 

He was in a quandary. Now he'd got Izumi, he didn't know what to do with him. He couldn't very well take the boy back home to meet his family. His father was half-dead, his brothers were both crazy; Hirose acted like a robot all the time and Akihito was childish and unpredictable and acted on every whim that flitted into his empty head. Izumi wouldn't be safe there. Akihito would probably take it upon himself to have Izumi interrogated by vampire Kurosaki on the grounds that he had to be some kind of enemy agent. Koji wasn't shocked by much and even less scared him, but Kurosaki did both. The man was a fanatic. 

To be continued... 

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	7. Part 7

Miyuki's Zetsuai Page Zetsuai 1989/Bronze   
Under the Moonlight, part 7 By miyuki-chan 

It was half past five in the morning and Kai Kurosaki had just finished painting his nails. He shouldn't even have been up. Should have been exhausted, trying to catch up on his sleep, but he wasn't even in bed and nor was Akihito. Neither of them tired easily. 

"That girl," Kurosaki said as he examined the nails of his right hand, "has got to be the stupidest spy I have ever come across." He had nice hands; they were deceptively fragile looking and it always surprised people when they discovered his strength, not that any of them were really in any position to comment by that stage. "Too stupid." Akihito said pensively. "She can't be the only one." "We knew that before we began." Kurosaki carefully put the lid back on his nail varnish and flexed his fingers in a vaguely feline way. "Only problem is, she didn't. Why'd you reckon they even sent her here?" "It makes sense, I suppose." Akihito replied. "That way if one of them is caught they can't betray the others. And I have no idea why send such an incompetent spy… maybe they wanted her to get caught to allow a more capable one to escape?" "Who knows… but you have to admit she's a challenge. Thought a kid like her would break like -" Kurosaki snapped his fingers, taking care not to smudge the varnish "- this." Akihito smiled. "She's a challenge all right. We certainly haven't finished with her." "You were right, you know. I do like her," Kurosaki said, then sobered. "So. What did she tell us?" "Not much." Akihito looked down at his notebook and sighed and scratched his head with the blue biro he'd been making notes with, the end slightly chewed, rather like Akihito's own fingernails. He had no desire to grow his nails. He'd leave all that to Kurosaki. 

"What are we going to do to her?" Kurosaki asked. "Why'd you tell me to leave her face alone?" Akihito grinned. "Make an example of her. The little twit said she's got a daddy in the government and that he'd be very angry if we didn't let her go. Remember? The only useful information we got out of her." He laughed. "God, what a totally hopeless spy." 

There were two main ways in which prisoners with influential relatives tended to react to being detained. One was to do what Katsumi had done - keep it quiet and refuse to be drawn either way on the matter or even deny it in the hope that your captors will assume that you know nothing and nobody of importance and leave you alone. The other was to make a big thing of it in the hope that the family name will protect you, make those who have imprisoned you grant you concessions, maybe even make a deal and let you go. Both ways had their merits and their drawbacks. Eri had taken the second path; unfortunately that kind of tactic smacked of desperation and certainly didn't impress the secret police. They had, after all, seen it all countless times before. 

Kurosaki laughed with him. "She's a total weirdo alright. Apparently some bureaucrat called Takasaka is incompetent, her father is some kind of superagent and Koji Nanjo is God." Kurosaki tended toward Akihito's view of Koji; that he was an arrogant bastard who shouldn't have anywhere near the amount of influence that he did. He sometimes wondered what it would be like to interrogate Koji Nanjo. He was sure he could make that man scream. "But why make an example of her in particular?" Akihito smiled again. "Publicity. Look at her… cute blonde teenager. Most of the spies we get are unattractive men in their thirties. She'll be quite a draw and it'll be a PR coup. The beautiful spy. Doesn't matter that she's a total incompetent. Make up a few spurious charges and we'll have a new Mata Hari on our hands. We make her sound like the greatest threat to the defence of the nation for fifty years and use her as an excuse for a tightening of security." "Mata Hari was a total incompetent as well." "In which case Eri Ijima is a worthy successor." "I take it we're going to kill her," Kurosaki said with a small frown. Ijima was interesting but there was no fun to be had in keeping her alive indefinitely. Kurosaki may have regarded Eri in the same way that a cat regards a mouse, but even cats ultimately get bored of toying with their prey and kill them in the end. "Oh, of course. Public execution. But first we're going to have some fun with her." 

*** 

A small room, sparsely furnished. Two, maybe three chairs and a metal table bolted to the floor, a single neon strip light spluttering and buzzing slightly. One high, narrow window, probably north-facing, letting in no light. A concrete floor. Walls painted an institutional green, flaking and peeling slightly in the damp atmosphere revealing cream-coloured paint of an equally institutional shade beneath. A heavy door, opening outwards. Cold, impersonal, more than a little forbidding. The things Katsumi found himself remembering most strongly were the slightly damp smell, the coldness of the floor. A collection of cobwebs in one corner of the ceiling he'd found himself staring fixedly at (anything to avoid meeting someone else's eyes or closing his own, which would have looked, or so it seemed to him, like tacit surrender), the buzzing of the light which had irritated him. 

He remembered cutting his forehead on something – or was it that an old wound was reopened? He had a suspicion it was the latter, he knew he'd had a cut there before which hadn't healed properly – and feeling blood running down his face and wishing he could wipe it off. Wanting to scream and at the same time not wanting to. Trying to mark time by counting. Trying to think of anything, of nothing. Don't cry until they leave you alone – don't scream, don't let them know that it hurts. They had all proved impossible. The dull ache in his bound wrists; they hadn't wanted him fighting back or struggling any more than was strictly necessary… probably because they hadn't wanted to risk getting any inexplicable cuts or bruises, not that their superiors would have cared anyway. Cramp in his neck – all this he remembered. 

The worst, though, was what he remembered of the conversation, if you could call it that. Some of it had been patronising, some of it had been mocking, some of it had been frankly obscene, but it had all been offensive and intentionally so. The curse-words he'd almost expected and could have coped with because logically he knew he was neither a slut or a whore, though he had never imagined that it could hurt when someone called you pretty or that anybody could turn the word 'boy' into a term of abuse. But he'd learnt a lot in that room and hadn't wanted to know any of it. 

Recently he'd had plenty of time to think. To do nothing but lie or sit still and gaze at the ceiling or out of the small window or at his hands, criss-crossed with scars – some old, some new – the nails bitten down to the quick and the cuticles torn and bloody, and struggle with the memories. For there was nothing else to do. He still couldn't remember verse seventeen of that old song. But he could remember what came after. 

Yesterday one of the doctors had been to see him. Talking quietly and gently, the way you would to a frightened child, he'd told him why it was he'd lost some feeling in his left arm. You understand what this means, don't you, Katsumi? He sat up in bed now, looking at it as if it belonged to someone else. He couldn't say he really understood a word of what they'd said but it had been something about nerve endings and trauma and unspecified damage and physiotherapy. Physiotherapy: that was the worst. It hurt even to move his arm. Last time they'd changed the dressing on his shoulder he'd looked and tried not to show his shock. No wonder it hurt so bad to move it. But he'd been in pain, both physical and mental, for such a long time now, for years… what was a little more of both? He could cope… 

Oh, sure he could. Right, Katsumi. If you can 'cope' why are you so screwed up? No need to bother trying to answer that one. Because you can't, can you? 

He knew all about the kind of fun Akihito and Kurosaki had talked about so casually, he knew what frustrated, lonely men could do to people they considered their enemies, and it kept him awake at nights. From the age of nine to thirteen he'd suffered from insomnia, but had hoped he'd got over it. No such luck. They'd looked at him like he was less than human and there'd been nothing he could do about it. 

You understand what this means, Katsumi? 

He wanted to see Yoshiya, even if it was only for a minute. Katsumi didn't even know where the man was. He'd known, for over a month, precisely where Yoshiya was, which was normally very close to him, and to suddenly not know any more was hard for him. He wondered if all he'd ever been to him was a burden. Maybe he'd resented having to baby him. He shouldn't have cried in front of Yoshiya. He certainly shouldn't have told Yoshiya about what had happened, for all that it had helped, but not a lot, to talk about it. Why talk to Katsumi Shibuya when you didn't have to, when you could talk to somebody else? Someone less emotional, less anxious, someone with fewer problems. Someone who didn't cry in his sleep. Someone who was happy, mature and sane rather than a seventeen year old screw-up. No wonder Yoshiya hadn't wanted to stick around. 

Where the hell was Yoshiya? Where the hell was anybody? 

Never mind all that, Katsumi thought, and tried to force himself to calm, to think of something else, something nice. He sighed and bit his lip and stared out of the window at the landscape outside but found nothing to distract him. Not that there was much to see; what little scenery was visible was shrouded in snow, the sun weak as watercolour and partly hidden by thin clouds and the shattered buildings. There was, he knew, no warmth in that sun, not at this time of year. It wasn't even midwinter yet and already the cold was biting. So cold. He shivered and blinked back tears. Why was it that even though they'd repeatedly told him he was safe now he still couldn't sleep, couldn't concentrate, couldn't even begin to forget? 

Five minutes later Yoshiya walked into the room to find Katsumi curled up on one side in his bed, crying softly into the pillow. 

*** 

What, wondered Koji, am I thinking of, coming back here again? 

Ultimately he'd had to take Izumi home. He didn't want to stay on the road forever. There had to be somewhere he could take the boy – somewhere he could put him where no one else could find him. If he'd wanted to do this by the book he'd just have let the men at the base take the boy and have him arrested. But that wasn't the way he wanted to play it. He'd taken Izumi so no one else could have him, so no one else could even see him. The only place he could think of where he could do that successfully for any length of time was, ironically enough, his home. 

More to the point, Koji didn't know what he was doing in… well, if he was going to put it crudely, not jumping on the boy and screwing him the minute he had the chance, although... He'd found out very little about what Izumi had been doing in coming to his country in the first place, but had often found himself thinking back to their first meeting. He'd had two other people with him – probably brothers, they'd both looked pretty similar – two people he remembered only vaguely, only one of whom had been reacting to the situation at all normally. The other had just stood there and stared vacantly at nothing at all – and certainly not at Koji. The only thing Koji had noticed with any real certainty about him was how exhausted he'd looked, both physically and mentally. And he couldn't have been more than eighteen. Koji guessed he knew why that was, everyone knew what could happen to boys in prison, and it was Izumi's spirit that had attracted him. He didn't ever want to see Izumi looking as utterly defeated as that boy had been. 

But at the same time, Koji wasn't used to sparing anyone's feelings. He'd never done so with any of his so-called girlfriends and saw no real reason to start doing so now. 

Another part of him said that scaring Izumi would be one way to keep him under control, that he'd get used to what was happening. That Izumi was spirited enough that merely sleeping with him wouldn't break him. That if he spared Izumi now the shock when he finally made a move would be far greater. That he just plain didn't want to wait much longer before he slept with Izumi. So he wouldn't. He knew that much about himself at least. 

*** 

Standing outside the base and watching the snow fall, Takasaka found himself wondering, why me? He didn't even know why it was he'd chosen to work as a spy any more, though he had a feeling it was probably through the misplaced patriotism of a young man. He'd been twenty-one when he'd left his own country. Too young to have made a choice like the one he had made, but he had refused to be told. Probably hadn't been told. There had been nobody around to tell him. He hadn't been conscripted, unlike those two boys he had helped back across the lines – the call-up age had been older then, when he was in his teens and early twenties. To Takasaka's mind, it was set far too young now. He'd been horrified when the older boy, Yoshiya (who was only barely in his twenties and didn't really seem old enough for war) had told him that Katsumi, his friend, the boy he'd shot, was seventeen years old and a conscript and that he'd been forced to drop out of school because of it; he knew there had been cases where boys as young as fifteen got call-up papers. By the time Takasaka had been the right age for conscription, by contrast, he'd been working for the government; a career which had guaranteed him exemption. Still, he'd wanted to do something… and he had done something. 

He hadn't thought of himself as at all exceptional. Certainly he'd never thought himself lucky. 

But for six years he'd been working in a hostile country living a dangerous double life. He'd been told from the beginning how hazardous the job was and how unlikely it was that he would survive it, but somehow he'd done it. Six years was a good length of time, when you were working as a spy. Six years with only one major mistake, sitting quiet through several false alarms and not managing to betray his own position through sheer nervousness, surviving the security crackdowns without so much as a suspicious glance in his direction when people he'd worked alongside and had known had nothing to do with spying were arrested and executed, without the secret police ever acting like they even knew of his existence, managing to escape the country without anyone asking what he was doing… he couldn't think of many other people who'd had a lucky streak like that. 

He couldn't actually think of that many other people who'd even come back. 

Takasaka was – had been – ideal spy material. He was quiet, discreet, efficient, unobtrusive. The kind of person who didn't even attract a second glance in the streets. One of many. He had no ties, no known relations, had come to the job after breaking up with a girlfriend whose name he could no longer remember and whose face he had only the vaguest recollections of. She had probably forgotten most of the things about him as quickly as he had forgotten her. He didn't remember his parents at all; the only thing Takasaka knew about them was their names and that they'd died when he was very young. 

Nothing to hold him back. Nothing to tie him down. 

Eri on the other hand… Eri had been far from ideal. Young, sexy, bubbly gregarious and stupid. Men stared at her as she walked to work. She had a boyfriend back home – it had finally been demonstrated to her that it was not a good idea to try and keep in touch with him. Her father was important, she still lived with her family. Eri was the kind of person who was normally gently dissuaded from taking on such a job, but this time Takasaka assumed her father had intervened. 

What of Eri? Now that his own position was secure, he could begin to wonder about what had happened to her. The Secret Police, he knew that much, but what? He told himself there was nothing more he could have done for her and there was no way he could have got her out of the country as well as himself, but couldn't help but feel guilty. He was safe, but what of her? Whilst he was being trained, he had been told of the tactics of the Secret Police: he had gone through training exercises designed to simulate their interrogation techniques. One of the men who had trained him had advocated suicide over capture. After what he had found out of their methods, Takasaka had been inclined to agree with him. 

And, on top of everything else, he would have to be the one to break the news of her capture. There was no hope of rescue for her. He'd been told that as well: it was standard practice. If a spy was captured, of course the government would deny all knowledge of them. 

If someone wasn't prepared to deal with the consequences, then they were not allowed on active duty. End of story. Eri had known the risks – she'd had to. She'd had to. 

But had she understood them? 

*** 

Eri came round slowly. She hadn't known. She just hadn't thought. She'd had so many preconceptions about the job she was doing, the job she had chosen to do, and they'd all been so wrong, so completely wrong. She'd thought it would be glamorous and exciting, like something out of a thriller or a film. She'd thought she'd go to exotic places, mix with beautiful people, get flirted with by handsome young men who made Kunihide look pretty hopeless. She was a socialite where she had come from and had confidently expected to move in the same kind of circles in her chosen career. She had expected to find out secrets and plans through pillow talk and idle chatter. She hadn't expected it to be anything like the way it had turned out to be. 

The reality had been far different. She'd ended up in a dingy flat working as a secretary, a job she had no real idea how to do. A boring job, made worse by having to stay behind late to rifle through desk drawers and look for official papers. She was not important enough to find out these things by sitting in on any meetings. She wasn't anyone's private secretary. The city she'd worked in was gloomy and drab, the war economy and patriotic zeal meant there were very few glamorous bars or restaurants to go to and those that were still in existence cost far too much for her to afford on her meagre wages. She'd had to rely on bureaucrats taking her out. At first she had been almost hopeful at this, but most of the men who flirted with her were middle-aged at best, married and seeking a discreet fling with a pretty girl. They never talked business with her, probably assuming that she wouldn't understand it. 

The only men under thirty she had spoken to were that Takasaka, who hadn't looked at her like she was anything special, and Akihito Nanjo and his friend Kurosaki. And that had hardly been a friendly chat. 

Eri sat up and looked round the room they had unceremoniously shoved her into. A cell like the one she'd been in before, but she had no way of telling if it was the same one or not. Shivering from the cold, she pulled the tattered, flimsy material of her pyjama jacket round her, and tried very hard not to cry. She had a feeling she'd been pretty cross with them at first. She hadn't wanted to answer any of Nanjo's questions… so Kurosaki had set about attempting to persuade her. 

Kurosaki had a line he used in interrogations, just before he got started. It was basically a get-out clause. It ran something like "You're going to tell us what we want to know anyway, even if it's only to make me leave you alone, so why not do it now and save me a lot of time and trouble and you a lot of pain?" Eri had assumed he said it to be intimidating but she'd been wrong. He said it because he meant it. 

There was nothing even remotely glamorous about this. 

*** 

Dressed in a loose silk robe, Koji stood up, a cigarette burning in his hand. With his other hand he pulled his long hair from the collar of the robe where it had become trapped when he put it on. His darkened bedroom was illuminated only by the moonlight streaming through his windows, through which the night city could be seen, the light cast by the neon lights on the buildings and the streetlights which traced the patterns of the streets almost overpowered by the light of the moon. The moon was bright tonight. In two or three nights' time it would be full moon. There was no such thing as natural darkness in Koji's world and even if there had been that moon would have kept it from being properly dark, for all that the skies were black. 

Turning away from the panorama his windows provided him with, which he had seen so many times that he couldn't find it in himself to think it any more than extremely dull anymore – he was jaded, totally jaded, and not even eighteen years old yet! – he gazed round the bedroom, eyes lighting on the huddled figure in his bed, and wondered what to do now. 

Izumi hadn't liked him that much before – Koji had been smart enough to work that one out. He was prepared to bet that the boy hated him with a passion by now. He'd have hated himself if he'd been in Izumi's position, but there was no way their circumstances could have ever been reversed; it just wouldn't have happened. Koji was protected by his position and his name. Practically everyone on both sides had heard of the Nanjo family and of Koji himself. Izumi had not got this advantage. He was a captain and a young one at that, he had no name to speak of, he wasn't important enough in the military or in the social hierarchy to justify the expense of looking for him. After a while he'd just be 'missing, presumed dead', and that would probably be the last anyone from his own side heard of captain Takuto Izumi. 

Oh, well. Koji shrugged, quickly pushing his doubts to the back of his mind. There were other things for him to worry about. Izumi may have been spirited but there wasn't a whole lot that he could really do about his current position, for all that he may have wanted to. 

Koji, of course, had assumed that Izumi was asleep. He wasn't, for all that he was lying still and forcing himself to breathe as if he were sleeping, even though it was difficult. He wondered if there was any way to attack this Koji character and kill him or, if that proved impossible, kill himself. The only thing he could think of was the windows – it was a long way to fall – and they would probably be made of reinforced glass. There would be no easy way to open them and breaking them would be out of the question. 

He couldn't have overpowered Koji anyway. Hadn't that just been proved to him? Koji was… Koji, basically. Not the kind of man who would let himself get overpowered by just anybody. Izumi was a trained soldier, he didn't think he was flattering himself too much by saying that he wasn't 'just anybody', but at the same time he still didn't think that in unarmed combat he could have bested Koji. Koji may have been a reluctant general but he was a general all the same and could hardly have been described as a pushover. Besides, Izumi wasn't suicidal. Yet. Still, if it came down to it he would have no compunction about killing Koji if there was any way he could get out alive. There had to be something he could do, he couldn't just give in. 

Izumi knew he was a prisoner just as surely as Katsumi had been, for all that their circumstances were different. But he wasn't Katsumi. He could cope with this. He had to, if only because of his sense of pride. Kimie Mori had been right, he'd done far more difficult and dangerous things than the mission he was currently on (in spite of everything, Izumi still regarded himself as on a mission, even if it was a mission to get himself back safely) and therefore no matter what happened he could survive it, and he would survive it no matter what came next. 

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	8. Part 8

Miyuki's Zetsuai Page Zetsuai 1989/Bronze   
Under the Moonlight, Part 8 By miyuki-chan 

Nadeshiko Nanjo, alias Mina Sakaki. She'd chosen the pseudonym herself. 

Like Takasaka before her, Nadeshiko was good at her job. She was a diligent worker and, though she was quietly attractive, she was unassuming. She was good both at the job of secretary she had taken as a cover, she was also good at spying. As far as Nadeshiko knew, nobody she worked under was even aware there was a mole in their organisation and whilst she wouldn't have been above suspicion should such a thing have been suspected, she would not have been seen as the most obvious threat to security. 

Her face was not known. Nadeshiko, despite her famous family, was a quiet person and had never courted publicity. For Koji and, to a certain degree, to Akihito, publicity drew them like a moth to a candle flame. Nadeshiko had never sought that. As the youngest member and a girl in a highly traditional family where very little was expected of women, she had been at best a shadowy personality. The biggest stir she was likely to have caused would be through her debut into society, her engagement and ultimate marriage. Nadeshiko was, as yet, too young for any of these things. 

She remained an unobtrusive cog in the apparatus of state, or to be more precise, a Trojan Horse in a personal computer, insidious as well as co-operative. In her position – Nadeshiko had managed, unlike Eri, to gain employment as a personal assistant, or something very similar – she saw and heard a lot; while not all of it proved useful, it all had a place. 

*** 

Standing in the lobby, cheeks slightly flushed from the cold, Katsumi ran his fingers through his hair in an attempt to get some of the snow out of it before it melted. Snow was just delayed-action rain in that respect; his hair was already slightly damp, not to mention it was hot in here. The central heating was horribly efficient. Still, he liked it. He hated being too cold. Holding his coat in one hand he absentmindedly rubbed his shoulder with the other; for some reason the cold made it ache. Stupid thing. His shoulder was a lot more trouble than it was worth right now. 

He'd been back in the city just under a week, he and Yoshiya both, that was. Odd, that. Katsumi had expected to be taken off active service when it became apparent that he'd never regain full mobility in his left arm – though the condition was mildly aggravating, he was secretly rather grateful for it – but Yoshiya was still perfectly healthy. He suspected someone, somewhere, of pulling some strings. He suspected it was his uncle. He certainly hadn't asked for it, for all that he was pleased about it. He'd have to remember to get him for at some point. 

Technically both he and Yoshiya were still soldiers. Katsumi thought he was more like a camouflaged Office Lady. He really didn't understand how it was it had been worked out, he just knew it had and that was all he'd needed to know. He supposed the theory was that this way his uncle could keep an eye on him. They couldn't risk sending him back to the front anyway, even if he wasn't on active duty, so they'd downgraded him and given him an administrative job. At least they'd actually given him something to do. Anything that stopped him from thinking too hard was fine by him. 

Still, offices were… he found them strange. Some of the younger secretaries barely seemed to know there was a war on at all; they were more preoccupied with make-up, gossiping and scheming to get married (some of these schemes involved Yoshiya on the grounds that he was young, single and a man. Yoshiya wasn't the flirtatious type and found this decidedly unnerving. Katsumi had been relieved to discover that he was still a child in their eyes and therefore not considered to be husband material). He didn't see how it was possible for people to live out their whole lives seemingly untouched by the war. They had to know people who'd died, they had to know girls whose fiancés and husbands and brothers had been conscripted, gone missing in combat, been killed… or who had come back from active duty as totally different people, confrontational, passive, fearless or fearful. They had to know people like that. They had to know boys like him. Young, frightened, scarred for life. 

You got all sorts in the army. Violator and violated on the same troop train. 

*** 

Koji coughed in the cold and looked disinterestedly round the latest base he was meant to be inspecting. After a while it had all begun to merge into one: sentry towers, clapboard and concrete. Shivering soldiers, men and women and conscripted kids in their mid teens but with one bored and hostile face between them, all of whom he was sure thought this was just as big a waste of time as he did, stood rank on rank in parade grounds in wind and squalls of snow. Barracks, blockhouses, bunkers, barbed wire. Commanding officers sweating in spite of the cold; anxious, irritated, on edge. This tour thing was the pits. It really, really stunk. He hadn't wanted to do it but Hirose had insisted. Hirose could really be very persuasive when he chose to be: his older brother had patiently explained the alternatives to him and Koji had realised that he had no choice in whether he went or not. But he really hadn't wanted to go and there had been only one reason for that. 

Izumi. 

He hadn't wanted to leave him alone. It wasn't safe in the house when Koji was there so it certainly wouldn't have been with him gone. He wouldn't have trusted the boy not to attempt to run and certainly wouldn't have trusted Akihito or someone not to go poking round and find him. Koji had to look after Izumi, that much was for sure, or if not look after him then at least keep him alive. Minamimoto had noticed, as Koji had always suspected she would, his sudden indifference to her and had correctly guessed the cause – a new lover. She had always been possessive, and it just hadn't occurred to her that Koji would tire of her too as he had with all his other lovers. She'd thought she was somehow different to all the others, that she was the one making the running, that he would never wish to leave her because she was Minamimoto, a woman from a powerful family, confident, beautiful, sexy. She may have been all those things, but one thing she wasn't was different. Izumi was different, but Minamimoto wasn't to know that and if Koji had his way she never would. Izumi had to come too. Wherever Koji went, Izumi would have to go. 

He'd told Hirose that Izumi was a bodyguard. Ha, that was a laugh. If he had been attacked Izumi would just have stood by and let it happen, would probably have watched it happen with a smile on his face. It had been enough to get Izumi out of the house with him, but it hadn't been enough to allay Hirose's suspicions. He'd insisted Koji go with a 'proper' bodyguard which had turned out to be, amongst others, Akihito and Kurosaki (maybe Izumi would have been safer at home after all? Considering that Akihito was here…). God knew why. There were plenty of soldiers who could have gone, plenty who had gone by the looks of it, just to make sure he was safe. So why then send a handful of secret policemen as well? In case there was a sudden rash of treachery and attempted defections by the soldiers accompanying them? In case there was a real pressing need to take political prisoners? Because no party was complete without a couple of men and women in black uniforms lurking unobtrusively on the sidelines making sure that no one said anything improper about Hirose? 

Oh, Koji knew why they were there alright. They weren't there to protect him. They were there to make sure he didn't try anything stupid, to keep tabs on him, report back to Hirose if he were to do anything suspicious. Akihito had been looking for an excuse to have him arrested for years and it was clear that he hoped to find one during this tour. It looked less obvious if Koji was with a family member, though. As for Kurosaki, this was probably his idea of a great holiday. Speaking of secret policemen and Kurosaki, where had that ghastly, bloodthirsty ghoul gotten to? He'd been gone for a while now, and Akihito had been looking perturbed at the sudden absence of his pale shadow. Not that Koji minded. He relished Akihito's discomfort at Kurosaki's disappearance. He wondered if something had happened to the man, even hoped that it had. He hoped it wasn't anything minor. 

A few feet away Izumi glared angrily at nothing at all before turning his attention back to Koji. The man trusted him enough to let him out in public – it was sad, really, for what it said about his perceived ability to fight back – but there wasn't anything he could do about it. He couldn't have attacked Koji. He told himself this was because they were surrounded by soldiers; should he have even attempted to attack Koji, even if he had only intended to try to slap him, he'd probably have been shot on the spot or failing that arrested (however badly off he was, he wasn't a prisoner in the strictest sense of the word. There was that to be thankful for). And running, even though his own country was so close, less than a days' walk for a man in good physical condition, was not an option. It may have been a short distance to walk, but it was too dangerous to try. It wasn't a walk over level terrain under good conditions. The ground was frozen, churned up and ravaged by slit trench and shell hole and tank track, covered in patches of ice and drifts of snow, riddled with barbed wire, ruined houses, villages and towns, deserted front-line bases; shot through with mines. A day's walk in distance, but you wouldn't make it back. Katsumi would never had made it back behind the lines alive if it hadn't been for his getting shot. Yoshiya, though he had been healthier and stronger than his companion (albeit not by much), probably would have died as well. 

There was such a thing as self-preservation, and though Izumi hadn't always been that kind of person, he was determined to survive now. 

"What if I ran?" he asked. Intellectual curiosity perhaps. Koji smiled humourlessly, not even looking at him. "You wouldn't get far in this weather." It had to be frustrating for him, Koji realised. His own people were so close. "No." Izumi replied tersely. "No, I don't suppose I would." He hated Koji, God he hated him, more than he'd ever hated anyone before. He hated what he did, hated what he stood for, just hated him. And hated what he did to him, and hated his own inability to do anything at all to stop him. That boy Shibuya's situation had been far more dangerous than Izumi's own was, but there was no way it could have been nearly as frustrating as this. 

"Besides." Koji hadn't finished talking yet. "Besides, even if you did run, I wouldn't let you escape. I like you just where you are." Oh, of course. You belong to me and all that nonsense. Nonsense? If only. It was accurate. "Well I don't like it. I hate it." 

Izumi had long since discovered that Koji genuinely didn't mind if he spoke his mind. Koji even seemed to get some kind of perverse pleasure out of it. He supposed that it figured, in a strange sort of way. The man was surrounded by yes-men, nodding donkeys who probably secretly hated him but sucked up to him because he could do them and their careers some good. That kind of man loved his career more than anything, more than integrity definitely, which they'd gladly have sold their souls for. Had Mephistopheles showed up in their apartments and offered them the world, anything they so desired, they'd have chosen career success over beautiful women and fabulous wealth; the career (so they thought) would give them all that anyway. Koji probably found the idea of someone articulating their real opinions about him pretty thrilling. 

"You will learn to like it." Koji said bluntly. It wasn't as if he was giving Izumi the choice either way. He would learn to like it or he would go mad trying. 

And, Koji added mentally, you will learn to like me. At the very least you will learn to like me. 

*** 

Kai Kurosaki wasn't noted for getting himself into stupid situations, nor was he, despite appearances, the kind of person to take unnecessary risks, which made his current position all the more embarrassing. He knew he'd never forgive himself for this. Ever. Especially not if he managed to get himself killed or ended up in prison for the rest of his natural, which wouldn't be much better and would probably be a lot worse. This was a bad situation to be in, bad bad bad, worse for someone with a job like his. If anyone tried to interrogate him he'd… oh, this was fucking ludicrous. He had no intention of getting interrogated by anyone, ever. He knew what it was like and that made him all the more determined to avoid it at all costs. Kurosaki had heard of irony and wished it would go and pick on someone else. 

It didn't help that his head was killing him. How the hell he'd managed to get into this totally absurd situation anyway was completely beyond him. His memories of the events leading up to it were vague to say the least (the headache explained that – by the feel of it he'd taken a blow to the back of the head, probably more than one, and he knew what that could do). He knew he'd been on that tour and somehow he'd got separated from the rest of the group – to be precise he'd got lost; if things could get any more embarrassing he didn't want to know about it – and ended up in… well, he was at the front line anyway, and he'd somehow gotten up close and personal with the war. 

The wound in his side wasn't that bad, it looked much worse than it really was. He'd been injured more severely than this and coped just fine. Kurosaki suspected that he'd been hurt worse than this and picked himself up and carried on as if nothing was at all wrong with him. That said, it did hurt like nobody's business. But the pain wasn't the problem, not really, it was the damn wound that was. If it hadn't been for it he wouldn't have been in the situation he was in now. He'd been hospitalised, but by the enemy. If he got out of this alive, Kurosaki was going to slap himself in the face. Hard. 

*** 

"My uncle did something very weird a couple of nights ago." Katsumi said to Yoshiya one lunch hour. He had been gazing out of the window at the falling snow and abstractedly tracing the pattern of sutures and scar tissue on his left shoulder through the thin cotton of his uniform's shirt, but turned and leant on the windowsill when he heard Yoshiya approach, wincing as he jarred his injured arm and shifting position slightly in order to take the weight off it. His tie was working its way loose again and his shirt was untucked. He looked more like a mildly delinquent high-school student than a soldier, but he'd probably never enter a classroom again. "What?" Yoshiya asked. He'd been unsurprised to hear Katsumi was living with his uncle, at least for the interim. "How do you mean weird?" "Well." Katsumi was frowning slightly, clearly perplexed. "You… you know… I don't sleep well at the moment, right?" Yoshiya nodded. "Right. If it bothers you why don't you go to a doctor?" "That's not what's bothering me and I've seen plenty of doctors recently, I think I'm owed a break." He smiled slightly; a genuine smile for all that it was gone in a moment. "See, a couple of nights ago… I, well, I woke up because… well, I don't know why. And my uncle was in my room and just stood there looking at me. It freaked me out." Katsumi could still be very childish in the way he articulated things; it surprised Yoshiya somewhat. Occasionally he forgot that his friend was barely seventeen. As he watched, the boy shook his head in confusion, frowning. "What I don't understand is… I mean, why? It's just so… well, it's not like him at all." Yoshiya hesitated slightly before replying. "How sure was he that you'd been killed?" he asked finally. "What?" Katsumi blinked. "A lot of the time when a soldier's down as missing in combat it means they're dead. Sounds like he'd convinced himself you were dead and hasn't quite got used to the fact you're not." Katsumi turned back to the window. "Hell, I haven't got used to that… and every time I wake up I'm worried I'm back there. You see why he freaked me out?" Katsumi didn't need to explain where 'there' was; Yoshiya knew the feelings well enough. He had exactly the same problems – insomnia, paranoia, nightmares. He had the same memories; they'd lived through it together. He knew what it felt like. 

"Hey Takafumi." Katsumi lowered his voice and changed the tone of the conversation with it. "There's something I've been wanting to ask you… I mean, I've been so caught up with all my problems…" Gods, he thought, I've been so selfish. "and you've been… you've been amazing, but…" But you're sad and scared too and I didn't notice because I was too busy feeling sorry for myself! "What's the matter?" Yoshiya asked. He was all but whispering too. Unconsciously they'd moved closer together, so close they were almost touching. He didn't know what Katsumi was talking about but he understood the mood well enough. "Did they… did they do… I mean, the way you act sometimes, 'specially round the girls… it wasn't just me--" Katsumi broke off, trying to work out how to phrase the question he hadn't even wanted to ask, then looked down, addressing the floor. "Don't cry, sweetheart," he murmured. Would Yoshiya understand? he wondered. He hoped not. He wanted to be told to talk sense. "Smile," Yoshiya replied. "Just relax. It won't…" His voice tailed off; Katsumi had flinched slightly. "When?" the boy asked, finally looking up to meet his friend's eyes. Distant like his own. "Two days after you told me about it. You weren't around." "I know the day you mean. Why didn't you tell me? I…" Katsumi swallowed. "I've been there too. You know I have…" "Hey, conspiracy theorists. What's the big secret?" 

The pair turned, both looking slightly guilty as if they'd been caught doing something they shouldn't, to find themselves looking at a girl, a cheerful, optimistic creature. A teenager like Katsumi had been three months ago. She was young, delicate and attractive, her long black hair was straight and unadorned, her eyes wide – reminding Katsumi slightly of a blonde girl who'd once flirted with him at a party, what had her name been again? – but intelligent. She was dressed smartly and becomingly in a wine-red suit; they'd both seen her round before. She stood out like a creature from another planet amongst the aging officers and harassed bureaucrats, the young soldiers in their drab grey uniforms and the heavily made-up office ladies. 

"Hullo," she said to fill the silence, smiling disarmingly. "Are you two new?" "Um…" Yoshiya began anxiously. He wasn't quite sure what to say, how he could switch between discussing something incredibly personal with someone he felt he knew inside out to exchanging trivialities with a total stranger, no matter how sweet she seemed. Gods, how much had she overheard? Had she understood any of it? "I guess you could say that." Katsumi giggled. Yoshiya spotted the hysteria, the newcomer didn't. "I didn't think I'd seen you before," she said, taking a couple of paces towards them. "I'm sure I would have noticed you. This place is such a bore… everyone here's so old. It's so nice to see I'm not the only young person here." Her speech patterns were strangely old-fashioned for such a young girl. She looked like she came from a highly traditional family, which probably meant a rich one. You didn't see many families like that any more. "That's… not such a bad thing," Katsumi finally said, hesitantly. "You'll, um, you'll find it easier to concentrate." Unthinkingly he grabbed Yoshiya's hand and squeezed it, little caring if the girl saw or not. He could tell his friend was even more unnerved by this girl walking in than he had been. It had been a bad time to choose to ask that question, but he'd wanted, he'd needed to know. Yoshiya had been strong for the both of them and that made Katsumi feel terribly sad. The girl laughed as if he'd said something incredibly witty, then turned to Yoshiya, who flushed slightly under her scrutiny. "Is your friend all right? He's very quiet." "Fine!" Yoshiya replied a little to quickly. Katsumi nodded. "Yeah. We've…" he groped for the correct phrase. "We've been at the front… we only got back a week ago." He'd heard the expression used from infancy to excuse all kinds of behaviour. Surviving front-line soldiers were generally considered to be a little touched in the head. Combat shock was what they called it. What it meant was that people normally left you alone, no questions asked. Yoshiya gave Katsumi a small smile, then spoke. "We like it up here. It's quiet. Don't you think so, Miss… um, miss…" The girl lifted one hand to her mouth in surprise. "Oh, didn't I introduce myself? I'm sorry. My name's Mina Sakaki. And you two are…?" 

She knew them already. She didn't need to ask who they were. Her brothers had told her about this boy, she'd already read his personnel files. 078364419 Shibuya, K., 17 years, private, grade B2. She knew Yoshiya, she'd seen them together before and decided to find out more about Shibuya's companion as well. 20 years, private, grade A1. She had a good memory, did Nadeshiko Nanjo. 

They were home, but they weren't safe. 

*** 

He had to get out, and do it quickly. Kurosaki didn't know why it was he hadn't been hauled off as a POW straight away, but it was probably only because of his injuries. That was called humanitarian. He didn't give any quarter to injured enemies, but these people were more compassionate, less knowledgeable about basic human nature. Give an inch and they take a mile… they take more, they take as much as they can grab! He didn't know how much he'd been given but it would be enough. He adapted fast; always had done. Obstacles were there to be overcome at worst and destroyed at best. 

So… where was he? In a room in a hospital, a field hospital he guessed, probably in a base pretty similar to the ones he'd been dragged round. If he listened he could still hear gunfire, he wasn't as far from the front line and his own people as he'd initially feared he was. There was a guard on the door, which was closed. He'd watched for a while through half-closed eyes, feigning sleep or unconsciousness, he didn't care which they took him to be, and it had quickly become obvious that the only people who were allowed to go in and out doctors, nurses and orderlies – and they all had to show a pass. Of course he didn't have his gun any more, still he could always try to overpower the guard on the door if it was necessary. But he was injured and he'd probably have been overpowered himself. It had to be some other way and it had to be soon; he wouldn't get a better chance than this. 

Sliding carefully out of the bed, Kurosaki crouched by the locker. They'd thoughtfully left his clothes in it. He almost laughed at that. Stupid, stupid behaviour! Making sure not to make any unnecessary noise, he dressed quickly – it didn't hurt that much, clearly the wound wasn't as bad as he'd assumed at first and a little pain he could handle, would have to handle if he wanted to stay alive and valued his freedom – then got back into bed and rifled through the pockets of his jacket, a smile spreading across his features. Clearly they hadn't thought to carry out a proper search of his belongings… Stupid. 

Kai Kurosaki had always had an eye for detail. It surprised him how many people here seemed to take things for granted, didn't double-check things, in some cases didn't even bother checking in the first place. He'd always looked for subtexts, for the things people might like to try to hide. Maybe he was suspicious, but there was nothing wrong with that. He'd always seen suspicion as a positive attribute. He would never have given himself this much leeway. It was almost as if they'd wanted him to try and escape. He wasn't about to disappoint them. All he needed now was for someone to walk into the room, and a short while later they did. 

The boy who entered the room, a nurse or orderly or something, couldn't have been more than sixteen years old. He was smaller than Kurosaki was, slightly thinner and maybe a little too attractive, but one thing he did not seem to be was at all formidable. Yes, he'd do very nicely. A lot of people were sappy about women and kids for some reason, and that could only work to his advantage. A girl or a young woman would have been better still but in Kurosaki's situation you couldn't afford to be picky, a boy who was still a child would do. The boy hummed slightly as he walked over to the windows, closing them against the weather and the night and drawing the blinds, his mind clearly not in the room. He didn't even seem to know that the room's inhabitant was classed as dangerous. That was stupid behaviour too. Maybe he hadn't been told. On top of everything else the guard on the door seemed no more than half awake. No, he wouldn't ever get a better chance than this. 

Kurosaki slid one hand beneath the pillows and carefully pulled out the knife he'd hidden there then watched to see if the boy had noticed his slight movement. Kurosaki needn't have worried; he carried on about his mundane tasks without even looking at the room's inhabitant until he made his way over to the side of the bed, frowning slightly at the sight of the locker, its door slightly ajar. Kurosaki waited until he had crouched beside the bed, in order to close the locker presumably, before he sat up and, leaning over the side of the bed, pressed the knife to the teenager's throat. 

"Don't move," he whispered. 

Kimie Mori froze. 

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